US military’s highest court overturns murder conviction against Marine in Iraq case

SAN DIEGO – The U.S. military’s highest court has overturned a murder conviction against a Marine in one of the most significant cases against American troops from the Iraq war.

The Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces threw out the conviction of Sgt. Lawrence Hutchins III, who has served about half of his 11-year sentence.

According to the ruling posted Wednesday on the court’s website, the judges agreed with Hutchins, who said his constitutional rights were violated when he was held in solitary confinement without access to a lawyer for seven days during his interrogation in Iraq.

Hutchins led an eight-man squad accused of kidnapping a retired Iraqi policeman from his home in April 2006, marching him to a ditch and shooting him dead in the village of Hamdania. None of the other squad members served more than 18 months.

Hutchins’ case already was overturned once by a court that ruled his 2007 trial was unfair because his lead defence lawyer quit shortly before it began. The same court that accepted his new petition overruled that decision, saying the problem was not grave enough to throw out the conviction.

Hutchins had been set to be released in July 2015 at the earliest.

Hutchins’ lawyer, Babu Kaza, said he now expects him to be released within days.