Court Martial Attorney – Lawyer challenges jury selection at N.S. soldier’s court martial
Class A reservists not allowed to hear case of reserve comrade
The process for selecting a military jury is unfair, the legal team for a Nova Scotian soldier argued at a pre-trial hearing on Friday.
Cpl. Matthew Wilcox , from Glace Bay, is charged in connection with the shooting death of Cpl. Kevin Megeney at the Khandahar airfield in March 2007.
Megeney, 25, from Stellarton, N.S., was found shot in the chest in a tent he shared with Wilcox.
Wilcox’s court martial is scheduled to begin on June 1 but his lawyer argued Friday that the process to select the panel is violating Wilcox’s right to a fair trail.
Wilcox is a Class-A reservist in the 2nd Battalion Nova Scotia Highlanders but no other Class-A reservists will be allowed to sit on the panel that will judge him at his court martial.
Class-A reservists are excluded from the selection process because they are volunteers and can’t be ordered to sit on the panel, Simone Morrissey, the court martial administrator, testified on Friday.
Morrissey said reservists can only serve a maximum of 14 days per month and many have full-time jobs.
It would be impractical to have reservists leave home and travel to the location of the trial for an unknown length of time, Morrissey said.
The prosecutor, Maj. Sherry MacLeod, said the administrator is well within her rights to omit those reservists.
“Class-A is your classic weekend warrior,” MacLeod said. “They serve on a very part-time basis and the law and regulations limit the amount of service that they do.”
But the exclusion places severe limits on the selection process, defence lawyer Maj. Stephen Turner argued.
“That’s 2,561 qualified Class-A reservists being excluded from service on panels … [at] the discretion of the court martial administrator,” Turner said.
A random selection process should include all available people, Turner said, and reservists should have a voice.
“You don’t have to look very far in the modern military to see the important function of the reserves,” he said. “The number of reserves who’ve deployed to Afghanistan and elsewhere — the reserves are vital and important part of the Canadian Forces.”
Wilcox’s lawyers have been seeking a stay of proceeding by challenging the constitutionality of the selection and court-martial process. His legal team challenged the independence of military judges in January.
Further arguments related to the selection process are expected to be submitted on Saturday.
In May, his lawyers plan to challenge what they term the disparity of resources available to the defence compared with the prosecution.
Wilcox is charged with manslaughter, criminal negligence and negligent performance of military duty.
Military officials initially said the shooting was accidental. However, military investigators charged Wilcox in October 2007.
Michael Waddington is a court martial lawyer – court martial attorney that defends military personnel worldwide as well as deployed civilian contractors subject to the UCMJ. He defends Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine, Coast Guard, and civilian contractor court martial cases. He has successfully defended military personnel as a court martial lawyer Army Navy Marine & Air Force court martials in Germany, England, Italy, Iraq, Kuwait, Korea, Okinawa, Japan, Yokota, and throughout the United States. military-defense-lawyer-recentcases.htm.
Comments on this entry are closed.