Wednesday, March 15, 2017

CMAC substitutes manslaughter for murder in Blackman case

HHJ Jeff Blackett
The Judge Advocate
General
The Court Martial Appeal Court today handed down its decision in the case of Royal Marines Sgt. Alexander Blackman. The court substituted a finding of manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility for the earlier murder conviction. The court will hear further submissions concerning sentence. The opinion in R. v Blackman, 2017 EWCA Crim 190 includes the following:
We would, however, like to make it clear that, when reviewing the matters the subject of our judgement, we could see no basis for any criticism of the conduct of the court martial by the Judge Advocate General [His Honour Judge Jeff Blackett]. He left the issues which had been raised by the prosecution and the defence during the hearing of the court martial to the Board in an entirely fair and proper manner.
The court's summary of the judgement can be found here.
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1 comment:

  1. Anthony PaphitiMarch 15, 2017 at 1:24 PM

    This means he will now earn remission on any sentence passed by the CMAC, when it decides at the sentencing hearing.

    The decision is of particular interest to the "shifted normality" experienced by those in particularly brutal combat zones. A good example is to be found in the book, "Forgotten Soldier", by Guy Sajer

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