Guilty-ish

Corp. Trent Thomas has been convicted of kidnapping and conspiring to murder Awad the Lame, but not for premeditated murder, making a false official statement, housebreaking or larceny. Now, if he was guilty of the things he was convicted of, then he was guilty of all the other charges, which were elements of the same crime. So what the jury did was to “compromise” with the facts in order to avoid the mandatory life sentence attached to the premeditated murder charge and allow themselves to give Thomas what I predict will be an insultingly light sentence.

Fun fact about courts martial: the jurors vote by secret ballot.

Two more courts martial in this case will begin later this month.