BlackFive

Tomorrow, Wednesday (June 18th), Sergeant Jermaine Nelson will, once again, take the stand in the US District Court in Los Angeles.

The details are found at this post.  Essentially, the US civilian courts can try our military for war crimes with no limitation.  So, California courts could prosecute soldiers from WWII if they wanted to...here are some facts from the case in the original post:

...Jose Nazario has been charged under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act (MEJA) passed by Congress in 2000. MEJA allows a service member serving overseas to be prosecuted in civilian court for offenses that call for more than one year of imprisonment. 

And now a liberal court in California is trying to set a precedent by trying Sergeant Nazario.

During the week of March 21st, Ryan Weemer was recalled to active duty by the Marines with the intent to try him at a court martial for murder.

Sergeant Jermaine Nelson is pending court martial at Camp Pendleton for murder.  He could receive life imprisonment...

I'll repost some information below if you would like to help defend Sergeant Nelson.  We are working on helping the others in this case as well:

You can write or call to signal your support of this decorated combat veteran who is being coerced to turn on a fellow Marine.  Keep it professional and to the point:

Hon. Percy Anderson
Courtroom No.: 15
312 N Spring St
  Los Angeles, CA 90012-4701
213-894-1795 ( if there is no answer  leave a message)

And you can write the prosecutor:

UNITED STATES ATTORNEY'S OFFICE
CENTRAL DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA
RIVERSIDE BRANCH OFFICE
ATTN: Jerry Behnke, Assistant United States Attorney
3880 Lemon Street
Suite 210
Riverside, California 92501
Telephone: (951) 276-6210
Fax: (951) 276-6202

Also, another way to help is to donate to the Sgt Nelson Defense Fund, set up via PayPal. Sergeant Nelson's attorney is former Marine Joe Low who is representing Nelson Pro Bono (but there are a lot of costs that Mr. Low is assuming - including hiring legal specialists, travel, court costs, etc.)

To donate, follow these instructions:

1) go to www.paypal.com and login. If you don't have a PayPal account you will need to register
2) once logged into PayPal, click on Send Money
3) enter the email address of Sgt Nelson's attorney ([email protected]), the dollar amount you wish to donate and check the Service/Other box, click Send Money at bottom of page.
4) enter billing info for the credit card
5) enter Sgt Nelson Defense Fund in the subject line and add a message to Sgt Nelson if you like
6) make the donation

One last note.  If you want to send a note to Jermaine Nelson, email me, SUBJECT: NELSON and I'll get it to him.

So far Sergeant Nelson has received great support from a lot of people.  In fact, I've forwarded quite a few email from his family and fellow Marines to him.  Keep up the pressure on the prosecutor and keep Sergeant Nelson in your prayers.