JAG CENTRAL

PFC Lynddie England and Inmate Charles Graner, A Match Made in Hell

From the San Antonio Express-Writer, word that the new trial for PFC Lynddie England, the most famous of the Abu Ghraib abuse suspects, has been set:

Pfc. Lynndie England, whose plea bargain was tossed by a Fort Hood judge earlier this year, returns to the Killeen post next week to stand trial in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and could get the longest sentence of nine-lower-ranking soldiers in the case.

Fort Hood spokesman Dan Hassett said pretrial motions will begin Tuesday, and that this time around no plea bargain is now on the table. The trial will begin Wednesday.

That means she could land in the stockade for 11 years when pre-trial motions are made in a small Fort Hood courtroom.

"The photograph with her having the dog leash on the detainee has become associated with the Abu Ghraib scandal," St. Mary's University Law School professor Jeffrey Addicott said today. "When you see that photograph, you think of Private England, and also the other photo with the cigarette in her mouth pointing at the naked detainee's genitals.

"Rightly or wrongly, she's the poster child for Abu Ghraib, and because of that she's going to get a sentence that's probably going to be greater than her counterparts who were involved in the scandal."

Col. James Pohl, the military judge, threw out her plea bargain in early May after England's one-time lover, Pvt. Charles Graner Jr., testified they did nothing wrong as she led a nude Iraqi inmate from his cell by a leash.

Pohl was required to enter a not guilty plea on England's behalf in connection with a charge that she and Graner conspired to mistreat the inmate. A maltreatment count based on the same incident also was tossed, and neither can be used again.

ANALYSIS: I wouldn't be so sure about the "no plea on the table" business. Having a long drawn out trial recounted on national TV is in nobody's interests. I think a plea bargain of around six years can be worked out. But then, I'm just a dumb JAG candidate.

Categories: Lynddie+England, Detainee+Abuse, Abu+Ghraib