Mentally Ill Soldier Facing Murder Charge

The Associated Press, From Denver, Colorado, has reported that though two doctors have found Pfc. David Lawrence mentally ill and unable to stand trial for the shooting death of an Afghan detainee, the Army has decided that he will face a court-martial and a charge of premeditated murder.

If convicted, he could face execution or life in prison.

Two Army doctors contend that due to his mental illness at the time of the slaying, he didn't know that what he was doing was wrong.

Victor M. Hansen, a retired Army trial lawyer and now a professor at New England School of Law at Boston, said of the decision to try Lawrence, "I'm hard-pressed to think of any examples where that's been done."

The acting commander at Lawrence's home post in Fort Carson, Colo., Brigadier General James Doty, made the decision to charge Lawrence. 

Lawrence's unit is the 1^st Brigade Combat Team of the 4 ^th Infantry Division.

Fort Carson officials site an Army Sanity Board report in their decision that reads, "The government feels it can proceed with trial at general court martial and the accused can cooperate intelligently in his defense."

On October 17 a suspected Taliban member, asleep in his jail cell at a U.S. outpost in Afghanistan, was allegedly shot to death by Lawrence.  

Lawrence had recently returned from an Army combat stress center - medicated with antidepressants - when he was assigned to guard duty. 

For three days the Sanity Board interviewed Lawrence, reviewed his medical records and checked other documents before making the decision that he suffered from schizophrenia, and post-traumatic stress disorder, during the shooting.

The board concluded that Lawrence had a "severe mental disease or defect."  He was also deemed "unable to appreciate the nature and quality or wrongfulness of his conduct at the time of the alleged criminal misconduct."

The board did attest, however, that Lawrence would be of some help to his lawyer and would understand the procedure against him.

James Culp, Lawrence's civilian attorney said, "It doesn't seem very fair to drag David and his family through the court-martial."

The victim, originally identified as "Mohebullah", was later changed on a charge sheet to "a male of apparent Afghan descent."  Culp believes that Mohebullah was a former Guantanamo Bay prisoner that had since been released. Culp further alleged that the Army might be embarrassed in naming the victim as Mohebullah when the prisoner had resurfaced as a Taliban member. 

Officials from Fort Carson claim that "because of the transient nature of Afghan names" the victim could also have been known as "Mullah Mohebullah."

A Pentagon spokeswoman couldn't confirm or deny his existence at Guantanamo without more information.

An Army psychiatrist stopped refilling Lawrence's anti-psychotic drugs in December - because he no longer believed his patient was schizophrenic - which caused Lawrence to become suicidal.  Brett Lawrence, Lawrence's father, said, "I couldn't believe it. I was very shocked."  

Culp had a civilian psychiatrist examine Lawrence - and he has since been placed back on his medication.  He is currently living under guard in a barracks.

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