Following an unusual CID search of military defense counsel offices in Camp Pendleton, CA, earlier this month, the Marine Corps launched an independent review to determine whether the search was appropriate and whether it compromised other defense cases that were caught up in the search. The independent investigator found no evidence of impropriety.
Nonetheless, the fallout continues both in public opinion and in on-going litigation of other current cases. As the AP and the Marine Corps Times report, a defendant in a Camp Pendleton hazing case asked the judge last week to remove his attorneys or alternatively to dismiss the charges against him due to the improper search and the possibility that his case is now tainted.
Though the military judge’s ruling will serve as the first judicial look at this matter since the initial May 2 search, it is not likely to be the last.
