SAN DIEGO (AP) — A military court has agreed to hear the appeal of a U.S. Marine convicted of murder in one of the most significant criminal cases against U.S. troops from the Iraq war.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces on Monday ordered a review requested by Sgt. Lawrence Hutchins III, who says his constitutional rights were violated when he was held in solitary without access to a lawyer for seven days during his interrogation, and that Navy Secretary Ray Mabus unlawfully influenced his case after his conviction.
Hutchins led an eight-man squad accused of kidnapping an Iraqi man from his home in the village of Hamdania in 2006, marching him into a ditch and killing him.
Hutchins has served about five years of an 11-year sentence.
