Civilian Counsel - Military Lawyers - Gary Myers, Daniel Conway & Associates - Military Attorneys with 40 Years Military Law Experience

General Clears Marine in Haditha Case
by Gidget Fuentes, Marine Corps Times, Aug 12, 2007

Lance Corporal Justin Sharratt was exonerated of murder charges after his articles 32 proceeding. Gary Myers, LCpl Sharratt's attorney, called the decision one of "historic proportions."Read More

Marine's Lawyer Cites him for Bravery
By Allison Hoffman - The Associated Press, Jun 13, 2007

Gary Myers attorney for Haditha Marine, in an Articles 32 opening statement emphasized LCpl Sharratt's bravery. Read More

Haditha Marine's Lawyer Says No Crime, No Cover-Up
CNN Interview, Aired 17 June 2006

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SENIOR PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): There was no crime to cover up, according to the attorney representing one of the Marines who was involved in several of the shootings that resulted in the deaths of 24 Iraqis, including women and children, last year in Haditha.

GARY MYERS, ATTORNEY FOR HADITHA MARINE: The rules of engagement are the license to do what they did. And as long as they followed those rules of engagement, I believe they have a defense of justifiable homicide, on the one hand, and, perhaps, self-defense on the other. In every particular this fails as evidence. Read More

'Atrocity' cases test US military justice
By Brad Knickerbocker, The Christian Science Monitor, 22 December 2006

Haditha, Hamdaniyah, and Mahmudiya - Iraqi cities where US troops are alleged to have committed wartime atrocities - may not have seared the public consciousness as deeply as did in Vietnam. But the cases, including new criminal charges filed Thursday against eight marines in connection with the killing of 24 civilians in Haditha, are sure to focus more attention on how the military handles abuse and killing of prisoners and civilians. The serious charges brought in these cases also raise basic questions about how the US military-justice system proceeds against alleged atrocities: What constitutes a "war crime"? What is the responsibility of officers of enlisted soldiers and marines who are found guilty? What punishments are being meted out? Read More

Troops 'will carry the can' for Iraq atrocity
By Toby Harnden, The Sunday Telegraph, 4 June 2006

A lawyer who successfully defended a soldier accused of war crimes in the My Lai massacre in Vietnam on March 16, 1968, has said that United States Marines charged over the alleged Haditha massacre will be made "political scapegoats'' by the Bush administration, writes Toby Harnden. Gary Myers, who also acted for one of the troops convicted of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, told The Sunday Telegraph: "Given this administration, it's almost a certainty. "This administration will seek to isolate the fewest number possible and call them aberrants. That is what will happen.'' Legal sources said that Mr Myers, a former military lawyer, is likely to represent at least one of the marines from Kilo Company of the 3/1 battalion, who face probable charges over the murder of 24 Iraqis. Read More

PTSD

The Bob Edwards Show: Gary Myers interviewed regarding PTSD - Quotes
December 27, 2008

Bob talks with Gary Myers about his experience working on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder cases and how PTSD affects troops in all of our military branches. Read More

NPR: Patrick Uloth's less than honorable discharge means that he can't get important veteran's benefits.
December 20, 2007

So advocates like Gary Myers, a former Army lawyer now in private practice, call on the nation's leaders to declare an amnesty. They say lawmakers should restore full benefits to all troops who were discharged for misconduct or other behavior after they returned from combat if they were also diagnosed with mental health problems such as PTSD.

"Congress needs to change the law," Myers says. Myers says commanders have to discipline troops who misbehave or it would destroy military discipline. But Myers adds, "We can no longer treat this as business as usual." Read More

NPR: Former Colleague: Peake Lacks Vision to Fix VA
by Daniel Zwerdling, November 1, 2007

"That is clearly a failure," said Gary Myers, a former Army lawyer, now in private practice, who works on military cases.

Myers says it's important to remember that Peake was running the Army's medical system when the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, and he kept running it until 18 months after the U.S. invaded Iraq. By late 2003, Army researchers were telling Peake that large numbers of troops were having serious mental health problems, including post-traumatic stress disorder. An Army study, later published in the New England Journal of Medicine, warned that soldiers were reporting "important barriers to receiving mental health services." Read More

ABU GHRAIB

Afghan Policies On Questioning Landed in Iraq
By Douglas Jehl and Eric Schmitt, The New York Times, 21 May 2004

The interrogation center at Abu Ghraib prison was run by a military intelligence unit that had served in Afghanistan and that had taken to Iraq the aggressive rules and procedures it had developed for the Afghan conflict, according to documents and testimony. Some members of the unit, part of the 519th Military Intelligence Battalion, from Fort Bragg, N.C., have already been quietly punished in connection with the abuse of an Iraqi woman at the prison, according to documents recently released by the Army. Read More

Change of Venue for Trial On Abuse in Iraq Is Rejected
By Adam Liptak, The New York Times, 22 May 2004

A request to move the court-martial of one of the defendants in the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal from Baghdad to Europe or the United States was rejected last week by a military commander, according to documents released by a lawyer for the defendant. The request, by a lawyer for Staff Sgt. Ivan L. Frederick II, contended that the safety of witnesses and lawyers could be assured only by moving the trial. The trials are to be held in Baghdad's convention center, in a heavily fortified area of the city known as the Green Zone. Read More

G.I.'s Are Accused of Abusing Iraqi Captives
By James Risen, New York Times, 29 April 2004

American soldiers at a prison outside Baghdad have been accused of forcing Iraqi prisoners into acts of sexual humiliation and other abuses in order to make them talk, according to officials and others familiar with the charges. The charges, first announced by the military in March, were documented by photographs taken by guards inside the prison, but were not described in detail until some of the pictures were made public. Read More

MY LAI

Judge Refuses to Dismiss Case Against Medina in Mylai Deaths
By Homer Bigart, New York Times, 11 September 1971

FORT McPHERSON, Ga., Sept. 10-The military judge in the trial of Capt. Ernest L. Medina denied today defense motions to dismiss the case. He said that the Government had produced "some substantial evidence" in support of all the charges against the Captain in the Mylai killings. The judge, Col. Kenneth A. Howard, also refused to direct the five-man court-martial to return a verdict of not guilty. Read More

Medina Case Witness Wins Plea on Contempt
New York Times, 31 August 1971

ATLANTA, Aug. 30 (UPI)- The Army's prosecution of Capt. Ernest L. Medina in the Mylai killings received an apparent setback today when Federal District Judge Charles A. Moye ruled that a reluctant witness could not be cited for contempt until immunity statutes were ruled upon. Read More

Army Withdraws Witness At Medina's Court-Martial
By Homer Bigart, New York Times, 26 August 1971

Fort McPherson, Georgia the Government's case against Capt. Ernest L. Medina suffered a series of major blows today. A key prosecution witness was withdrawn after he said he would willingly commit perjury if it served his conception of justice. Another invoked the Fifth Amendment and refused to testify despite a grant of immunity. Read More

United States v. Scott

DNA Test Results Inconclusive in Scott Case
By Gary Craig of the Potomac News, 16 February 1988

A forensics test that lawyers for Marine Cpt. Lindsey Scott say could have answered whether he raped and attempted to kill a military policeman’s wife in 1983 has yielded inconclusive results. Read More

Cpl. Scott Found Not Guilty in 2nd Court-Martial
By Lee Hockstader, The Washington Post, 20 February 1988

A jury of seven Marine Corps officers at the Quantico Marine base found Cpl. Lindsey Scott not guilty yesterday on charges of attempted murder, rape, sodomy and abduction, concluding a marathon personal and legal struggle for Scott nearly five years after it began As Col. Donald Festa, the senior-ranking juror, read the verdict after 10 hours and 20 minutes of deliberation, Scott's stony demeanor broke for the first time since his second court-martial began Jan. 25. Tears welled in his eyes as his attorneys embraced him. Read More

STRYKER 5/2

Army restricts access to photos of soldiers with Afghan corpses
By Hal Bernton, The Seattle Times, Sept 25 2010

The Army is strictly controlling access to several grisly photos of U.S. soldiers holding up Afghan corpses, images that were uncovered as part of an investigation into alleged war crimes. Earlier this month, Army prosecutors at Joint Base Lewis-McChord turned over the photos to a military representative of civilian attorneys representing five soldiers accused of murdering three Afghan civilians and other crimes. Read More

Stryker murder scandal details shared with top level of Afghan government
By Matt Misterek on November 15, 2010

Reporter Adam Ashton provides this update from a military courtroom:
Afghan President Hamid Karzai was briefed about the Army's investigation into a "rogue" Stryker platoon in southern Afghanistan while the soldiers were deployed there earlier this year, an Army investigator testified today. Read More

Army court halts case in Afghan civilian killings
By GENE JOHNSON The Associated Press Saturday, November 20, 2010

SEATTLE - An Army appeals court has halted the prosecution of one of five soldiers charged with killing Afghan civilians for fun earlier this year, taking the unusual step after his lawyer argued that the Army's refusal to make gruesome photographs public violated his client's right to an open trial. Read More

Lawyer blasts US army probe into Afghan killings
(AFP)

SEATTLE - An Army appeals court has halted the prosecution of one of five soldiers charged with killing Afghan civilians for fun earlier this year, taking the unusual step after his lawyer argued that the Army's refusal to make gruesome photographs public violated his client's right to an open trial. Read More

Don't Ask Don't Tell

Navy seeks to discharge sailor found asleep in bed with another male sailor
By Craig Whitlock Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, March 5, 2011; 7:17 PM

To hear Navy Petty Officer Stephen C. Jones tell it, what happened in his bedroom one night last month was purely innocuous: Another male sailor came by to watch "The Vampire Diaries," and they both dozed off in the same bed. Read More

OTHER STORIES

Officer's Rights vs. Navy Rules: Urinalysis Dispute Leads to Charges
By Lee Hockstader, Washington Post, 2 September 1988

Lt. Elizabeth Susan Unger is the kind of officer the United States Navy usually brags about. A graduate of the first class at the Naval Academy to include women, she is a civil engineer, the wife of a Navy flight officer and the daughter of a former Annapolis chemistry professor. A Methodist raised in a dry county in the Texas panhandle, she says she has never tasted beer, wine or hard liquor, never seen illegal drugs of any kind and only once took a puff from a cigarette.
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Hart Sentenced to 26 Years for Wife’s Death
MAJ Acquitted of Murder, Found Guilty of Manslaughter
By Jeremy Kirk, Stars and Stripes, 11 June 2004
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At Trial, Major Details Events That Led to Wife's Death
By Jeremy Kirk, Stars and Stripes, 9 June 2004
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