Be fair with sentencing, lawyer asks
FORT HOOD, Texas – A defense lawyer for Pfc. Lynndie R. England said Tuesday that the young woman who became a symbolic figure in the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal would answer for herself but should not face undue punishment because of the crimes of her fellow soldiers.
“I think the message is that justice is going to be done; it’s being done,” said Richard A. Hernandez, a civilian lawyer from Colorado who is representing the 22-year-old Army reservist. “She’s taken responsibility for her part in this. But I don’t think she can pay for the actions of others. They have to pay their own price.”
The military jury that will help fix England’s punishment heard testimony Tuesday from a West Virginia school psychologist who said that from the time she was in kindergarten, England struggled with pronounced learning disabilities made worse by a lack of oxygen when she was born and a severe speech impairment.
“I knew that I was going to know Lynndie England for the rest of my life,” said Thomas C. Denne, a school administrator in Mineral County, W. Va., where England grew up.
Denne said England was not mentally retarded and made progress in school. But he said she coped by avoiding conflict and quietly following directions: “She did what she was told, and she did what she was told all the time,” he said.
England’s lawyers say that obedient streak continued at Abu Ghraib, where England posed in now infamous photographs with naked and hooded Iraqi detainees because of pressure from her friends, including her then-boyfriend, former Spec. Charles A. Graner, the scandal’s reputed ringleader.
England, who gave birth in October to a son Graner fathered, pleaded guilty Monday to two counts of conspiracy, four counts of mistreating detainees and one count of dereliction of duty.
She faces a maximum sentence of 11 years in military prison, but the jury – consisting of five men and one woman – can recommend a punishment of no jail time.
England was one of seven members of the Maryland-based 372nd Military Police Company charged with humiliating and assaulting prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Graner – who could testify as a witness for England today – is so far the only soldier charged in the scandal to contest the case against him at a military trial. He was convicted and sentenced to 10 years.