As we've recently reported, LTC Terry Lakin's sad but certain slide into the legal whirlpool of doom was taking its anticipated course.
The previous trip before the judge resulted in most of his lawyers' planned defense being left in tatters, but the most recent pre-trial hearing, earlier this week, has essentially turned their great white hope into a drooling and incontinent quadriplegic in a broken-down Walmart scooter.
The military judge responded by determining that the orders ... given LTC Lakin were lawful. She continued by taking judicial notice of an Army regulation regarding orders and ruling that the witnesses {Keyes et. al} ... were precluded from testifying as experts, although they could end up testifying in sentencing if the case proceeds that far. Furthermore, the military judge granted the prosecution motions to prevent the defense from raising irrelevant issues regarding President Obama's eligibility to serve as the commander-in-chief and LTC Lakin's motivation for disobeying the deployment orders during the findings phase of the trial.
The more dominant half of Lakin's defense team, Paul Rolf "Otis" Jensen, was not having it.
"Our arms were cut off last time," said Jensen. "Our legs are being cut off this time ... We have to have the opportunity to present some defense!"
Just before Lind recessed the hearing to prepare her decision, Jensen asked rhetorically whether the government intended to allow him to call any witnesses at all and thundered, "This is all we had left!"
Well, when you take nothing from nothing, you're pretty much back where you started from, aren't you?
But all is not lost! We have word that the Defense is submitting a writ of mandamus, apparently hoping to have the judge forced to allow the defense they'd planned, rather than the defense they've been left with. But, in true Otis fashion, it's for "reasons I can't get into right now."
Ooooo - SPOOKY! Fortunately, it seems unlikely the writ will do anything other than take up space on someone's desk until being consigned to the circular file along with the bad idea jeans, but you have to give Jensen and company credit for trying. At this point, they'd be better off trying to claim that Lakin was possessed by Space Beavers and had no idea what he was doing or saying until just a half hour ago, and would like a do-over on the past year of his life.
He'd better brush up on his Space Beaver-ese, though. The trial resumes in early November. Get your tickets now!
(hat tips to our friends at Oh For Goodness Sake and Obama Conspiracy Theories)
