By Bob McCarty and Carrie Fatigante
An e-mail Dr. Herbert Leon MacDonell sent to Capts. Meghan Poirier, Jason Elbert and Erwin Roberts — Army prosecutors all — just after 4 o’clock in the afternoon Feb. 27, 2009, should have warranted their attention for several reasons, but they opted to treat the information it contained in exactly the same manner as they had treated it when delivered in person a day earlier.
Largely as a result of the prosecutors’ decisions, Army Ranger 1st Lt. Michael Behenna is now serving a 20-year sentence at Fort Leavenworth after being convicted by a seven-member court-martial panel of unpremeditated murder in the shooting death of Ali Mansur, a known Al-Qaeda operative.
Why should the prosecutors have paid attention to what Dr. MacDonell had to share with them?
For starters, they should have paid attention, because Dr. MacDonell is the expert witness in blood stain forensics they had flown to Fort Campbell, Ky. to testify in the case. Now serving as director of the Laboratory for Forensic Science in Corning, N.Y., Dr. MacDonell’s expert forensics career spans five decades and includes such high-profile and complex cases as the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and the case against O.J. Simpson. In other words, he’s no slouch when it comes to investigations.
For reasons inexplicable, prosecutors opted not to call upon Dr. MacDonell to testify in the case; therefore, he was never able to share with the court something new he had learned about the case — something vital that prosecutors had not shared with him.
Thanks, however, to the fact that he sent that single e-mail, Lieutenant Behenna’s parents, Scott and Vicki Behenna, now hold on to an ever-so-slim hope that they can bring an end to the family nightmare involving their son, now 26.
Read the unedited text of Dr. MacDonell’s e-mail message below and judge for yourself whether you think Lieutenant Behenna deserves, at a minimum, a new trial or, more appropriately, a full presidential pardon:
Friday, February 27, 2009
4:07 p.m.
Dear Captain Poirier:
I came home to an incredible pile-up of work but I shall try to send an invoice to you within a few days. On that issue I should advice you that I may have exceeded what was appropriate because of staying two nights rather then one. My estimate for my total cost was based on one night there but I shall still try to keep the total within your budget even if I have to reduce the number of hours I spent here in preparation for my testimony.
On another issue I am somewhat concerned that I did not testify and have a chance to inform the court of the only logical explanation for this shooting. As I demonstrated to you and to the two other prosecutors, Dr. Berg, Sgt. McCaulley, and Sgt. Rogers?, from the evidence I feel that Ali Mansur had to have been shot in the chest when he was standing. As he dropped straight down he was shot again at the very instant that his head passed in front of the muzzle. Admittedly, this would be an amazing coincidence, however, it fits the facts and as I told you on Wednesday, it fits the facts and I can not think of a more logical explanation.
This scenario is consistent with the two shots being close together, consistent with their horizontal trajectory, consistent with the bloodstains on the floor, and consistent with the condition of the 9mm flattened out bullet which was tumbling after leaving Mansur’s head or body. I do not know where this bullet was recovered but I would expect after impact to the concrete wall it fell very close to that wall. The other bullet should have been close to the first and there should have been two impact points on the wall.
On Thursday afternoon when I heard Lt. Michael Behenna testify as to the circumstances of how the shots were fired I could not believe how close it was to the scenario I had described to you on Wednesday. I am sure that had I testified that I would have wanted to give my reenactment so the jury could have had the option of considering how well the defendant’s story fit the physical facts. This, of course, would not have been helpful to the prosecution case. However, I feel that it is quite important as possible exculpatory evidence so I hope that, in the interest of justice, you informed Mr. Zimmerman of my findings. It certainly appears like Brady material to me.
It was a pleasure meeting you and your team and I learned one thing; the military life is not for me. You guys are getting up about the time we go to bed.
Respectfully Submitted,
Dr. Herbert Leon MacDonell, Director
LABORATORY OF FORENSIC SCIENCE
A clemency hearing for Lieutenant Behenna is set to take place Jan. 7 in Arlington, Va.
Cross-posted at BobMcCarty.com.
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To read other BMW posts about Lieutenant Behenna’s case, click here.
To learn more about Lieutenant Behenna’s life before and after he joined the Army, click here to download “The Michael Behenna Story” (26 pgs., PDF) by new BMW contributor Carrie Fatigante.
To learn more about the case and the legal defense fund set up to help defray costs associated with Lt. Behenna’s defense, visit DefendMichael.wordpress.com.
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