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Honolulu (AP) —The Federal Court of Appeals, which ruled on Tuesday, seeks DNA tests that could allow U.S. military members convicted at court martial to exempt them in the same way as civilian prisoners. He urged Congress to correct the disparity that did not allow it.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling upholds a lower court ruling in which former soldier Clifford Hubbard ordered a federal judge to test DNA and dismissed a petition to distrust his supporters. doing. Attempted to rape and murder the son of an Army officer.
In 2019, the Hawaii Innocence Project filed a petition at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii’s base, for a DNA test of bites and hair, which the military said had linked Hubbard to the choking of 14-year-old Derekkusmoto.
Investigators were able to collect and test a variety of physical evidence from crime scenes, such as boys’ socks and shirts cut from their bodies, the motion said.
Lawyers say there is no direct evidence of the death of Lt. Col. Hubbard’s adopted child, Lt. Col. Howard Kusmoto, in their move for DNA testing that was not available in the 1980s. Outside Honolulu.
The Innocence Project also claimed that key military witnesses in the case changed his statement six times, then went to AWOL before the trial began and were later found dead in an Ohio prison. ..
Tuesday’s ruling said a judge in the US District Court couldn’t order a DNA test because he wasn’t the court guilty of Hubbard.
Kennes Lawson, co-director of the Hawaii Innocence Project, says Hubbard cannot rely on a court martial sentenced to life imprisonment. Such a court martial was temporarily convened for trial and no longer exists.
Lawson called for help from a Hawaiian parliamentary delegation, saying the Innocence Project would request a wider panel of judges from the Ninth Circuit Court to hear the case. “If that doesn’t work, the only option left is to ask the president for a pardon,” he said.
The Federal Attorney’s Office in Honolulu did not immediately return a message asking for comment on the decision.
Hubbard’s petition was filed under the False Accident Protection Act of 2004. This allows you to revisit the false conviction of DNA left on the scene of a crime.
In the opinion of Judge Michelle Friedland, the false accusation law “a strange and unjustified military officer convicted at a court martial is less likely to undergo a DNA test than other categories of federal or state prisoners. It is producing results. ” “I am impartial to Congress by amending the IPA to explicitly provide military personnel convicted at court martial with the same means of post-conviction DNA testing provided to other prisoners. I request you to correct it. “
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