Judge Throws Out England's Guilty Plea

[gldstwmn]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...use_england_49

FORT HOOD, Texas - A military judge Wednesday threw out Pfc. Lynndie England's guilty plea to prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, saying that he was not convinced that she knew that her actions were wrong at the time.

Col. James Pohl entered a plea of not guilty for England to a charge of conspiring with Pvt. Charles Graner Jr. to maltreat detainees at the Baghdad-area prison.

The action came after Graner testified at England's sentencing hearing that pictures he took of England holding a naked prisoner on a leash at Abu Ghraib were meant to be used as a legitimate training aid for other guards.

When England pleaded guilty Monday, she told the judge she knew that the pictures were being taken purely for the amusement of the guards.

Pohl said the two statements could not be reconciled.

"You can't have a one-person conspiracy," the judge said before he declared a mistrial and dismissed the jury.

[skcin]

Yeah, and he ordered her to smile & have a good time doing it, right?

[strandinthewind]

This is not that uncommon. I mean there is testimony negating the credibility of her plea and this is a high profile case. I think the judge should have accepted it and we could all begin to move on - people take pleas all of the time, she had to allocute, and in the end what will the trial prove other than we already know. But, sounds like someone upstairs does not want to do that. So, we shall see how this pans out.

[irishgrl]

I am not familiar with all the details of this case, but is she really guilty?

was her testimony genuine or coerced? anything dealing with the prisoner abuse smacks of "circus" to me....

[sparky]

One thing she is certainly guilty of is looking like a mealy mouthed little inbred. No dispute there.

[dissention]

Originally Posted by sparky

One thing she is certainly guilty of is looking like a mealy mouthed little inbred. No dispute there.

I think that piece of trailer trash is pure evil. The look on her face in that one photo where she has her hands pointing at the prisoners as if they were guns disturbs me beyond belief. Just evil.

Her family is just as bad. They were on TV when this first broke, saying that she did nothing wrong and that they deserved it.

[skcin]

Originally Posted by sparky

One thing she is certainly guilty of is looking like a mealy mouthed little inbred. No dispute there.

Thank God someone had the balls to say what I wanted to.