Bob McCarty Writes

EDITOR’S NOTE: The case of 1st Lt. Michael Behenna, the Army Ranger officer who has been featured in 18 posts to date on this blog as a result of him being wrongly convicted of unpremeditated murder in the self-defense shooting death of a known Al-Qaeda terrorist, goes before the Army Clemency Board Thursday in Arlington, Va.  In advance of that important event, this soldier’s mother, Vicki Behenna, sent the message below and asks everyone who supports her son to read it and offer whatever support possible:

To All Michael Behenna Supporters,

We travel to Washington D.C. this week to plead Michael’s case before the Army Clemency Board.  We have so much to tell them, but we are given only ten minutes to convey our many thoughts.  Amazingly, Michael’s sentence of 20 years is twice what any other soldier has been sentenced for unpremeditated murder.  It is our hope that the Clemency Board will at the very least bring Michael’s sentence into line with others.  Even better would be if the Board decided to release him pending his appeal.

Michael’s attorney’s filed his appeal on 12/22/09 and their appellate brief gives us great hope the appellate court will need to look long and hard as to whether Michael received a fair trial.  Special focus was put on the prosecution withholding crucial evidence offered by their own expert which could have exonerated Michael on the murder charge.

Your support of Michael during this holiday season has been emotionally and spiritually uplifting. Our son received hundreds of cards that helped him get through this difficult time. Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers in the coming weeks and keep up your letter writing to the Secretary of the Army, Honorable John McHugh, 1400 Defense Pentagon, Washington, DC   20301-1400. In the end we believe that Michael will prevail.

Of special note is that Michael’s case was selected as #5 in the top ten articles covered by the Court of Appeals of the Armed Forces (CAAF) Blog.  The fact that persons covering military appeals have shown such an interest in Michael’s case helps provide encouragement for those of us that feel Michael’s case is so much more than another war related murder case.

Below are links to articles by the Oklahoman’s Washington Correspondent and a KOCO video concerning the Clemency Hearing:

Daily Oklahoman article (article also shown in entirety below)

Channel KOCO interview

For more details about what you can do to help, read Lieutenant Michael Behenna Needs Your Help.