50cal

Standing his ground



Sergeant, jailed for not talking in squad leader’s trial, says he’ll never change his mind
By Gidget Fuentes - gfuentes@militarytimes.com
Posted : June 09, 2008

LOS ANGELES — The ching-ching of metal chains sounded the arrival of Sgt. Jermaine A. Nelson, and a dozen supporters turned their heads to see the Iraq combat veteran handcuffed, shackled and wearing green prison garb as two federal marshals escorted him into the courtroom.
Eight days earlier, on May 21, a U.S. District Court judge ordered Nelson held in federal lockup for defying a court order to testify before a federal grand jury in nearby Riverside, Calif., in a manslaughter case against his former infantry squad leader.
Nelson refused.
Despite the judge’s repeated warnings that day, the 26-year-old sergeant from Camp Pendleton, Calif., stood firm, insisting to Judge Percy Anderson that he had nothing to tell the panel investigating allegations of slayings during combat operations in Fallujah, Iraq, in 2004. So the judge held Nelson in contempt of court, and federal marshals escorted the Marine to a federal detention center.
On May 29, Nelson returned to court, and Anderson again reminded the Marine of his standing order to talk to the grand jury.
“If you persist in refusing to answer questions before the grand jury in the face of a valid order,” the judge said from the bench, “you may be confined for the duration of the grand jury ... or until you answer.”
Nelson listened from the defense table in Courtroom 15, a spacious but nondescript courtroom with green carpeting, wood panels and high ceiling. His attorney, Joseph H. Low IV, a former Marine, sat next to him, armed with a stack of papers that included printouts of e-mail messages supporting the sergeant.
At one point, federal prosecutors asked the judge to seal the proceedings because of the secretive nature of grand jury proceedings. Anderson said he would take it up at “an appropriate time.”
The judge reminded Nelson that he could be confined for as long as 18 months and fined if he continued to defy the order.
“I believe I’ve advised you of this before,” he said. “As soon as you let us know you would be willing to answer the questions, you will be released. Is that clear to the witness?”
Low conferred briefly with Nelson and said, “Yes, sir.”
About 10 minutes later, the judge ordered spectators to leave the courtroom.
Summer trial for squad leader

The drama played out one week after Nelson was supposed to have been arraigned in a Camp Pendleton court on military charges of unpremeditated murder in connection with the 2004 combat operations.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Riverside, Calif., requested an order — without Nelson’s attorney present, Low said — instructing the Marine to testify in the case against his former squad leader, then-Sgt. Jose L. Nazario Jr. After a grand jury indicted Nazario last summer, federal prosecutors in Riverside charged him with involuntary manslaughter for what they contend was the “unlawful killing of an unknown, unarmed, detained person.”
Nazario, 28, left the Marine Corps in 2005 and is scheduled to be tried in July in federal court in July.
On May 22, Nelson appeared in the downtown L.A. courtroom dressed in his Charlie service dress uniform. During one of the judge’s admonitions, he got down on his knees and began to cry and to pray.
The marshals put Nelson in handcuffs, and the judge reiterated his order. But the sergeant again was defiant, telling the court, “I’m never going to change my mind,” his attorney recounted.
At one point, before he was taken from the courtroom, Low said, Nelson whispered to him, “You tell the judge, that wasn’t needed because I am not going to change my mind.”
Nelson’s squad leader, Nazario, completed his military obligation after his separation in October 2005, so he couldn’t be charged by the Corps under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. But U.S. prosecutors filed federal charges under the little-known Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, a law enacted in 2000 largely to enable the federal prosecution of military dependents and military contractors overseas.
After Nazario’s indictment, the Corps also charged Nelson and another former squad member, Sgt. Ryan Weemer, with murder and dereliction of duty in the shootings in Fallujah. Both cases have been referred to general courts-martial.
It was Weemer’s admission during a polygraph examination two years ago, while applying for work with the Secret Service, that prompted the initial investigation into the allegations by a special agent with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.
In Iraq, Nelson, Nazario, Weemer and other Marines from Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines, slugged it out during some of the most brutal fighting of the war. Low said Nazario saved Nelson’s life more than once.
The squad became Nelson’s brothers-in-arms — whose bonds only tightened with the hell of Fallujah and life-and-death actions they endured during their combat actions in Iraq, he said.
Low said he was surprised by the federal judge’s initial action to confine Nelson in the federal detention center.
“You’re going to put a decorated combat veteran ... in jail over Memorial Day weekend because he refuses to testify against another combat veteran?” he said, noting that Nazario and Weemer were not in federal custody as they awaited their days in court.
But Low wasn’t shocked by Nelson’s insistence to defy the order. “They are combat Marines, and they are as hard as nails,” he said.
Taking a stand

Nelson, his attorney said, was abandoned by his parents and had a tough childhood before he enlisted in the Marines after high school.
“He’s literally come up from absolutely nothing,” Low said. The Marine Corps and his buddies are “the only people who’ve ever cared about him.”
Before the marshals took him into custody, Low told Nelson that he was concerned that the Marine would suffer in federal custody.
But the sergeant told him not to worry, that he had seen much worse in combat, including the loss of close friends killed in war.
“‘That was kind of scary,” Low said Nelson told him. “Nothing like that is going to happen to me [now].”
A week later, Nelson walked into the courtroom, to the delight of supporters holding out hope that the judge would release the Marine. Low visited Nelson several times during his detention and said the Marine was stoic and resolute in his stance.
The closed-door court proceedings May 29 lasted about 30 minutes. Low brought news to the hallway where a dozen or so supporters waited for word.
“The judge ordered him to be released,” he said.
Nelson “will go back to the grand jury and he will listen to their questions, as opposed to just refuse to even hear their questions,” Low said. “The judge asked him to at least listen and answer.”
The outcome is not expected to change much once Nelson gets before the grand jury.
“We agreed to go and listen and at least try to participate,” he said. Nelson would tell them his “name, rank and serial number,” as well as “any questions he’s been advised from me to answer.”
Just then, the court doors opened and marshals escorted Nelson, still in shackles, to a nearby elevator. He looked up and glanced at the crowd of supporters, several of whom applauded and shouted, “We love you.”
Low said Nelson was moved by seeing supporters outside the courtroom. At the earlier hearing, the room was empty except for attorneys, marshals and the judge’s staff.
The sight moved Low to tears as he relayed thanks to the supporters. Because Nelson was still detained, “He was not able to communicate with you,” he told them. “He didn’t expect to see so many people who cared about him.”
“He was overcome by emotion, which I could understand a little bit,” Low said. “He’s had a hard time today. It meant the world to him.
“He wasn’t willing to change what he believed in.”

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