Killeen, Texas – The court- martial of Pfc. Lynndie England, accused of abusing naked Iraqi detainees in the Abu Ghraib prison, collapsed abruptly Wednesday when a military judge threw out her guilty plea after testimony by the convicted ringleader of the scandal and father of her baby.
The surprise mistrial canceled what had appeared to be a perfunctory punishment phase and sent the case back to the Army commander at Fort Hood for re-examination. Government and defense lawyers said they would meet as early as today to consider their options.
The judge, Col. James Pohl, ordered the mistrial after Pvt. Charles Graner Jr., testifying on behalf of England, his former lover, portrayed their handling of a leashed prisoner as legitimate, contradicting England’s sworn admission of guilt. He said she acted at his request.
“I was asking her as the senior person at that extraction,” Graner said, referring to an inmate’s removal from his cell.
Clearly taken aback, Pohl broke in, lecturing the defense lawyers. “If you don’t want to plead guilty, don’t,” he said. “But you can’t plead guilty and then say you’re not. Am I missing something here?”
Under an agreement accepted by the judge on the opening day of trial at Fort Hood on Monday, England, 22, pleaded guilty to seven of nine charges of conspiracy, dereliction of duty, maltreatment and indecent acts. She did so in exchange for what those close to the prosecution said would be no more than 30 months in prison, although the jury panel of six officers could impose a lower term.
England, who had arrived at court with her 7-month-old son, Carter, seemed bewildered by the turn of events, although she maintained her regular expression of indifference and answered reporters’ questions by motioning a hand across zipped lips.
When Graner, 36, took the stand in uniform – although he has been dishonorably discharged – she looked down, writing, but eventually gazed up at him.
The drama of the two former intimates and accused co-conspirators confronting each other across a courtroom went unaddressed, although the tangle of relationships has grown with a former wife of Graner’s on hand Wednesday to testify as a witness if called, and revelations that he recently married another convicted defendant, Spec. Megan Ambuhl.
England seemed to betray her feelings when she looked over the shoulder of a courtroom artist sketching Graner and commented, “You forgot the horns and goatee.”
Where the case – which stretches back more than a year – goes from here was far from clear. Neither the prosecutors, Capt. Chris Graveline and Capt. Chuck Neill, nor the defense lawyers, Capt. Jonathan Crisp and Rick Hernandez, commented publicly afterward.
But they indicated they would follow up on the judge’s suggestion that they might “negotiate a new deal – come back another day.”
Pohl said he was returning the case to the “convening authority,” that is Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz, who convened the so-called Article 32 proceeding that charged England on Feb. 11 with nine offenses carrying prison time of up to 16 1/2 years.
In his brief time on the stand Wednesday, Graner acknowledged that “we had a relationship” and that England, although not in the Military Police but in a supporting capacity, came to visit him on various occasions in Abu Ghraib.
He was telling about the episode with the leash when the judge cut him off, asking: “Why did you take the pictures?” Graner replied: “It was going to be a planned extraction” and “it was the closest way I could document it.”
The judge seemed incredulous. “What you’re saying is it was part of a legitimate cell extraction, you’re saying it was legitimate?” he asked, going on to berate the defense, “You can’t plead guilty and say you’re not guilty.”
“If Pvt. Graner is to be believed, he was not violating any law, so you could not be violating any law,” Pohl continued. “If you don’t believe you were guilty, doing what Graner told you, you can’t plead guilty.”
He adjourned for closed discussions with the lawyers, and when court was reconvened after three hours, the decision was made. By portraying England as blameless in the leash episode, the witness had fatally undercut her guilty plea to a vital conspiracy count, the judge ruled, saying, “You can’t have a one-person conspiracy.”
The plea agreement rested on the admission, and with the contradiction, he found, she was no longer covered by the deal, exposing her, should she insist on still pleading guilty, to an unspecified and possibly long prison sentence.
Then he turned to England.
“Maybe you think we forgot about you,” he said, trying to explain the ruling to her. “I’m not sure you’ll understand.”
“It’s nothing you did, it’s what he did,” Pohl said of Graner. “Basically what it means is this trial is going to stop, to be picked up another day.”
