Charles Gittins | |
|---|---|
| Nickname(s) | Charlie |
| Born | October 26, 1956 [1] Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania |
| Died | May 17, 2024 (aged 67) [2] |
| Service/ | United States Marine Corps United States Marine Corps Reserve [3] |
| Years of service | 1979-1992 (active duty) [3] 1992-1995 (reserve) [3] |
| Rank | Lieutenant Colonel |
| Unit | United States Marine Corps Judge Advocate Division [3] |
| Battles/wars | Gulf War |
| Other work | Lawyer who specializes in military cases |
Charles William Gittins [4] (born October 26, 1956) is an American lawyer, who has worked for a number of noteworthy defendants in military courts martial. [5] [6] [7]
Gittins attended the United States Naval Academy, graduating in 1979. He then joined the Marine Corps where he served as a Radar Intercept Officer. [5]
Gittins graduated first in his class from The Catholic University of America's Columbus School of Law in 1987 and was in the Judge Advocate Corps for six years, before entering civilian life. [5] [8] The first civilian firm Gittins worked for was Williams & Connolly. [5] While there he defended Robert E. Stumpf, Commander of the Blue Angels, and one of the principals in the Tailhook scandal. [9] He spent three and a half years there before founding his own firm. [5]
| Lieutenant Ilario Pantano | United States Marine Corps who was cleared of shooting two unarmed Iraqi captives, then desecrating their bodies in order "to send a message". [10] |
| Specialist Charles Graner | Military Police reservist involved in the Abu Ghraib scandal. [11] |
| Major Harry "Psycho" Schmidt | Former instructor from the United States Navy's TOPGUN school who bombarded a platoon of Canadians in Afghanistan, even though he had been directed to hold his fire. [12] [13] |
| Commander Scott Waddle | Captain of the USS GREENEVILLE, during the conduct of an emergency surface maneuver, the GREENEVILLE collided with the Japanese Fishery training vessle Ehime Maru which sank in 2000 feet of water off the coast of Oahu (see Ehime Maru and USS Greeneville collision). [7] [14] |
| Captain Christopher M. Beiring | Commanded the troops at the Bagram Theater Internment Facility, which beat two Afghani captives to death with "compliance blows". [15] [16] |
| Captain Randy W. Stone | Stone was a Marine Judge Advocate officer against whom charges were recommended for failing to formally investigate the Haditha incident where a squad of Marines methodically shot and killed two dozen nearby civilian families after a well-liked comrade was killed by a roadside bomb. [17] |
Charles A. Graner Jr. is an American former soldier who was court-martialed for prisoner abuse after the 2003–2004 Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal. Along with other soldiers of his Army Reserve unit, the 372nd Military Police Company, Graner was accused of allowing and inflicting sexual, physical, and psychological abuse on Iraqi detainees in Abu Ghraib prison, a notorious prison in Baghdad during the United States' occupation of Iraq.
The Tailhook scandal was a military scandal in which United States (U.S.) Navy and U.S. Marine Corps aviation officers were alleged to have sexually assaulted up to 83 women and seven men, or otherwise engaged in "improper and indecent" conduct at the Las Vegas Hilton in Las Vegas, Nevada. The events took place at the 35th Annual Tailhook Association Symposium from September 5 to 8, 1991. The event was subsequently abbreviated as "Tailhook '91" in media accounts.
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The Haditha massacre was a series of killings on November 19, 2005, in which a group of United States Marines killed 24 unarmed Iraqi civilians. The killings occurred in the city of Haditha in Iraq's western province of Al Anbar. Among the dead were men, women, elderly people and children as young as 3, who were shot multiple times at close range while unarmed. The ensuing massacre took place after an improvised explosive device exploded near a convoy, killing a lance corporal and severely injuring two other marines. The immediate reaction of some of the marines was to seize five men in a nearby taxi and execute them on the street.
On 9 February 2001, about nine nautical miles south of Oahu, Hawaii, in the Pacific Ocean, the United States Navy (USN) Los Angeles-class submarine USS Greeneville (SSN-772) collided with the Japanese fishery high-school training ship Ehime Maru (えひめ丸) from Ehime Prefecture. In a demonstration for some VIP civilian visitors, Greeneville performed an emergency ballast blow surfacing maneuver. As the submarine shot to the surface, she struck Ehime Maru. Within ten minutes of the collision, Ehime Maru sank. Nine of the thirty-five people aboard were killed: four high school students, two teachers, and three crew members.
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Colby Vokey is an American lawyer and former officer in the United States Marine Corps. He currently practices criminal defense law in his own private practice. He represents clients in all types of criminal matters, with particular emphasis on cases involving military law. Vokey earned the rank of lieutenant colonel and served as a judge advocate in the United States Marine Corps during 21 years of service to his country. His retirement from the Marine Corps became effective November 1, 2008. During his military career, Vokey earned worldwide praise for his work ethic and integrity, based in part on his work for defendants detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who faced charges stemming from the war in Iraq.
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His most famous case involved Cmdr. Scott Waddle, commanding officer of the submarine Greeneville, which hit a Japanese training vessel in February 2001.
Waddle's attorney Charles Gittins, who has represented clients in several high-profile military cases, said Sunday that the collision was caused by a 'chain of mistakes' in the sub's control room that left his client unaware of the dangerous proximity of the trawler.
He was honored by the service with an invitation to go to law school at the expense of the Government. He graduated first in his class at Catholic University in May 1987.
{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)Both Gittins and Beck say the responsibility for the friendly fire incident lies further up in the chain of command.
Yesterday, his attorney, Charles Gittins, said Waddle would not testify because he had not been granted testimonial immunity by Adm. Thomas Fargo, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.
In one of the prosecutors' most important tests, the Army last month abandoned its case against Capt. Christopher M. Beiring, the former military police commander at Bagram and one of the few American officers since 9/11 to face criminal charges related to the abuse of detainees by the officers' subordinates.
Ultimately, the army's Criminal Investigations Command recommended charges against 28 soldiers, implicating them in the deaths of two detainees. (One was Dilawar; the other was Mullah Habibullah, who died on December 4, 2002 after similar treatment.) As of September 2004, twelve GIs had actually been charged, including the commander of the 377th, Captain Christopher M. Beiring.
Stone's lawyer, Charles Gittins, says the Marines are trying to make his client a scapegoat.