This is the gun law idiocy across the Atlantic and something we can expect in the future if the current administration has their way.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2012/n...tingale-appeal
An SAS veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan will lodge an appeal on Wednesday against a decision to jail him for possessing a pistol and live ammunition at his home in Britain.
Members of the special forces were angered when Sgt Danny Nightingale was jailed this month after pleading guilty to possessing a Glock 9mm pistol that he said was given to him after he left Iraq in 2007. Many rounds of live ammunition, including 50 armour piercing bullets, were also found at his home.
The father-of-two, who had been an SAS sniper, pleaded guilty on the understanding, his family and lawyers say, that he would get a lenient sentence, perhaps suspended. He was jailed for 18 months.
Conservative MPs l rallied behind the jailed SAS man on Tuesday evening after
Dominic Grieve, the attorney general, said it would be inappropriate for him to review the sentence handed down by the court martial. He raised the case in response to a request from Philip Hammond, the defence secretary, "to review whether the public interest test has been applied appropriately".
However, officials quickly made clear that neither the defence secretary nor the attorney general could intervene in a case brought by the independent service prosecutor and decided by a court martial.
A spokesperson for Grieve said it would be inappropriate for him to review "either the decision to prosecute or comment on the appropriateness of the sentence. That is a matter for the court martial appeal court, in due course".
Nightingale, 37, is being held at the
military corrective training centre in Colchester, Essex.
The Glock was a gift from Iraqi soldiers he had been training, the court martial was told. It had been packed up and returned to him by colleagues in Iraq, after he left the country in a hurry to help organise the funeral of two friends killed in action.
The court martial was told that Nightingale suffered a traumatic brain injury in 2009 which led to amnesia, and that he did not remember having the weapon.
Nightingale's family said he was given a clear impression he would be given a long, perhaps five-year, jail sentence unless he pleaded guilty. If he did so, he would probably not get a custodial sentence.
Defence officials stress that live ammunition as well as a pistol was found in the service accommodation where he lived with another soldier.
Simon McKay, Nightingale's solicitor,said: "The attorney general has supervisory responsibilities for the service prosecuting authority that brought the case, and in theory the attorney general could direct that the appeal is unopposed and/or whether there ought to be a retrial if the convictions are quashed."
McKay said he was working with William Clegg QC, "one of the most experienced criminal silks in the country" and there was "a strong degree of confidence". McKay said he would be lodging an appeal against the detention on the grounds his client only pleaded guilty after being told he might otherwise be jailed for five years. He will also apply on Wednesday for bail for Nightingale.
Lt Col Richard Williams, Nightingale's commanding officer in Iraq, said concerns about an injustice appeared to be being taken seriously by the government.
The prime minister's official spokesman said: "The PM agrees that the defence secretary was right to pursue every avenue and make sure that the correct processes had been followed. The attorney general has given his response."
During a debate on the case in the House of Commons , MPs demanded that ministers intervene and prevent military prosecutors from opposing Nightingale's appeal. Julian Lewis, the Tory MP for New Forest East, said the case highlighted the "iniquitous" problem of plea bargaining, in reference to claims that Nightingale had been told he could face a five year jail term unless he pleaded guilty. "It is common sense that we are looking for from our frontbench tonight, not boneheaded rigidity that can give not only military justice but civil justice an irreparably bad reputation in this country," Lewis added.
"The appeal when it comes should not be opposed and this man should be allowed to resume his career and his life with the honour he so richly deserves."
Julian Brazier, Tory MP for Canterbury and a former member of the territorial SAS, said Nightingale had "risked his life for his country again and again".
Turning to the solicitor general, Oliver Heald, he said: "I urge you to review the service interest test in this case and allow the planned appeal to go through unopposed."
Patrick Mercer, another Tory MP and a former soldier who had sat on court martial panels, said he respected the military justice system but claimed that the treatment of Nightingale had not been in the army's interests and could affect morale in the armed forces.
He said: "I would suggest that this will operationally affect not just our special forces, but every soldier, sailor, airman and Royal Marine, who puts his or her life on the line for their country and understands that their country owes them a debt of honour."
This is what his lawyer, Simon McKay, recently had to say:
Danny Nightingale pleaded guilty because he believed that if he didn’t he would face the risk of a five year jail term. The reasons for this belief will be considered by the courts in due course. His wife and father were devastated, in part because the prospect was terrifying as it would be to all law- abiding citizens but also I think because they knew the calibre of man they loved wouldn’t allow them to endure it. He has spent almost half his life placing himself in grave danger for the “security and happiness of the people”; there was no prospect he would make his family suffer based on an outcome he could not control. That day different actors talked to Sergeant Nightingale about integrity; of the decisions made; the nature of the evidence; of their own selves even but none had the right to do so. The only person who earned that was Danny – he earned it when he helped those injured in the Omagh Bombing, when he gained admission to the most elite Regiment in the world, when he served with unhesitating courage in Iraq and Afghanistan and when he brought the dead bodies of his brothers in arms back from war and left a pistol which someone else packed in his kit.
His appeal against sentence is on Thursday next week. Public interest again is likely to pervade the submissions made on his behalf. Almost certainly reference will be made to the petition in support of which this article has been written. Every name on the petition counts because it echoes the last and with each the voice of protest from the public gets louder until its unity suppresses the stubborn and monotonous tone of injustice. It is as DH Lawrence wrote “the only justice is to follow the sincere intuition of the soul, angry or gentle. Anger is just, and pity is just, but judgment is never just”.
Consideration of the public interest will also need to be confronted when a decision is taken whether, if Sergeant Nightingale’s conviction is quashed, a re-trial should be sought. The position then is as it was put in The Times: “if the proper channels cannot put this right, then the proper channels have a problem”.
Right now the consensus is that justice has miscarried. Our courts, again like the people, are not faultless but they have a great tradition of introspection and recognising when they have erred. I hope the balance is restored next week. Your support will I am sure be recognised as a reflection of the majority of the people that the Court serves.
Sign his
petition; I did -
http://you.38degrees.org.uk/petition...ailed-war-hero
PayPal email address for
donations is
freedannynightingale@hotmail.com
SAS sniper jailed for possessing a handgun
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