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Florence
3-23-12, 4:03pm
What a situation! What do you think? Mass murderer? PTSD? Guilty? Death penalty?

Spartana
3-23-12, 4:10pm
He will be subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) rather than civilian Rules of Law. The UCMJ allows for both the death penalty in murder cases as well as court martial and life imprisionment. Not sure under the UCMJ what circumstances will be considered "mitigating circumstances" (like having PTSD) but they will probably be different from civilian mitigating circumstances. There is a clause in the UCMJ for people who suffer a "mental defect" - or something like that - which is used to determine the person wasn't able to determine that their actions case harm. But that's up to the Judge (JAG) or members conducting the court-martial to decide and is pretty hard to do. If it can be proved that he acted in a "fit of passion" with no premeditation (that will be hard to prove too) he can then be sentenced to involuntary manslaughter. My guess is that, combined with the other military charges like derilection of duty, he will most likely get life imprision. BTW the President can actually input some legal changes to military trials if he wishs.

As far as "why" he did it - I'm guessing probably PTSD from too many back to back tours, combined with the stressors of losing his family's home to foreclosure (heard about it the day he did the shooting), seeing a friend's legs getting blown off the day before, and suffering his own injuries (head and foot) recently. Those things will likely lessen his sentence to life imprisionment (or less) rather than the death penalty. But yes, I think he's guilty and was aware what he was doing (maybe even premeditated doing it in fact) and that overall he was in his right mind but lacked the impulse control not to act on his feelings.

ApatheticNoMore
3-23-12, 4:18pm
Not the first or the last I guess, driven crazy by these wars (there was also the guy (Itzcoatl Ocampo), who came back and went around serial killing homeless people). Of course there might be more to the Bales story ... I don't know.

Zoebird
3-23-12, 4:25pm
I agree with Spartana on the particular code/rule of law that should be utilized, and I don't have enough facts to make a judgment.

JaneV2.0
3-23-12, 4:32pm
Interesting how they never seem to go after people who can fight back.

Gregg
3-23-12, 5:07pm
By all indication PTSD was a factor. I don't know enough about the case or the disorder to know how much of a factor. In any event, someone who commits a crime of this magnitude against other people needs help. According to multiple friends, neighbors, brothers in arms, etc. this man never exhibited any signs that would have indicated such a rampage were possible. It seems obvious something snapped and that the system failed to support Sgt. Bales in a way that would have avoided a tragedy. I can't help but feel the innocent people who were killed may not have been the only victim here. That is not to say he isn't guilty of a heinous act, there just might be more to the story.

Florence
3-23-12, 5:15pm
I just don't know. My DH did one tour of duty in VietNam and he says he just cannot imagine having to have done 3 tours in a war zone.
But 17 people killed. I just don't know.

Spartana
3-23-12, 5:25pm
I just don't know. My DH did one tour of duty in VietNam and he says he just cannot imagine having to have done 3 tours in a war zone.
But 17 people killed. I just don't know.

I think the guy was on his 4th tour when this happened (I might be wrong). Still... hard to fanthom doing this, especially when, by all accounts, he seemed no more stressed by this tour then anyone else did.