The Wheels Begin Turning Against Scheller

9/27/2021

“Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller Jr. is currently in pre-trial confinement in the Regional Brig for Marine Corps Installations East aboard Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune pending an Article 32 preliminary hearing,” said Capt. Sam Stephenson, a spokesman for Training and Education Command. “The time, date, and location of the proceedings have not been determined. Lt. Col. Scheller will be afforded all due process.”

Read the Task and Purpose article here.

Anonymous JAG

9/27/2021 09:25:51 pm

To keep him in confinement there has to be a serious offense. Can crazy speech qualify?

1984

10/1/2021 02:58:08 am

Yes, if it's against a Democratic administration.

However, if you were to, for instance, allege a "conspiracy" that a sitting US President would dare ask a foreign government to assist in a corruption case were the other party was clearly selling access to his office for campaign contributions via his crackhead son, well you would not be prosecuted. In fact, you would be allowed to go to War College and get a gig at CNN pedaling said crazy speech.

CTC

9/27/2021 10:19:21 pm

I have in other posts advocated that Lt Col Scheller should be court martialed. Putting that aside, pretrial confinement sounds unduly harsh. I suspect that Command believes him unable to refrain from engaging in ongoing misconduct. He has stated his much in his own posts, suggesting he could not be silenced. It appears Command accepted Lt Col Scheller's challenge.

Brenner

9/27/2021 10:22:03 pm

I agree that in this case it is reasonable.

Poster

9/28/2021 09:43:29 am

Officers are segregated, so in solitary. This will go on for months. So by the time trial hits it's almost guaranteed there will be an insanity defense. If he can be considered competent at all. Good job Marines, these are Soviet dissenter themes playing out over Afghanistan.

Philip D. Cave link

9/28/2021 11:57:22 am

Might we assume that the command and the relevant SJA know more about the case than we do from news reports?

it is not that long ago that the appellate courts decided that protecting a person from self-harm, along with other factors, can be a basis for pretrial confinement. See, e.g., United States v. Wardle, 58 M.J. 156 (C.A.A.F. 2003).

Attorney

9/28/2021 09:22:06 pm

Is this correct? Wardle expressly declined to reach the issue of whether a suicide attempt can be valid basis for PTC. Wardle, 58 M.J. at 159 ("However, we need not reach the issue of whether suicide risk in this case, or under other circumstances, would warrant pretrial confinement.")

Scott

9/28/2021 12:08:17 pm

Wonder whether the charges will focus on the original conduct or on disobeying the apparent order to stop.

Former DC

9/28/2021 12:38:28 pm

CTC - I completely agree that pre-trial confinement is unduly harsh. It strains credulity to argue that mere speech (and orders to discontinue said speech) is a serious enough government interest to justify PTC. That's especially true in this case - after his initial post, the coverage around all of his follow up posts have been dramatically reduced (until the USMC decided to prefer charges and impose PTC).

Also, I can't wait to see the UCI motions in this case. There's absolutely no way that the GOFOs involved in this have resisted the urge to tip the scales of justice.

AnnoyingProle

9/30/2021 12:29:38 am

Senior Officer publicly and fragrantly criticizes his leadership via Youtube. Ordered to stop. Continues to do it, and even in one video, says he'll resign his commission and "come and follow me and we'll bring the whole f*--ing system down." Ordered to stop. Posts video saying he's going to issue criminal charges against CENTCOM. Subsequently posts on Facebook repeating the same. Told to stop posting without exception.

Finally, posts again, (about being told not to post further, and about speaking truth to power), and says "Col Emmel please have the MPs waiting for me at 0800 on Monday. I’m ready for jail."

Gotta say, if you're going to punk the Col that much, after disobeying him that many times, you should not be surprised when he takes you up on the offer.

Nathan Freeburg

9/28/2021 01:18:29 pm

a couple of thoughts:

1. Of course, it's Camp Lejeune. a. Camp Lejeune has a very large brig so it costs them nothing to put a Marine in PTC at the drop of the hat. b. yes there are interesting equal protection questions because a Marine at CL is far more likely (for example, roughly 10x as likely as a soldier at Fort Bragg an hour and a half away) to be put in PTC than any other American service member anywhere in the world. c. lawyers are not involved in the initial process of putting a Marine in PTC at Lejeune. Which is insane. it's a lay-commander driven process. in 2021.

2. On the other hand, unlike every other PTC decision at Lejeune, I doubt this one was done on a whim. different strokes for different ranks. As Phil suggested, mental health may very well be at issue here.

Philip D. Cave link

9/28/2021 03:30:14 pm

And, not many get released during the confinement hearing?

Nathan Freeburg

9/28/2021 08:06:36 pm

I shouldn’t have said every other PTC decision at CL was done on a whim. But many are.

Gilbert

10/5/2021 01:17:16 pm

1. "Very Large" is incorrect. The brig there might have 100 beds and they aren't near capacity. While it is true that Bragg doesn't have as large of a PTC population that is because they do not have a brig and use either local jails or more specifically the Lejeune brig.

2. As for lawyers being involved in placing Marines in PTC, well the TC's and SJA's are involved 99.9% of the time.

Rachel E. VanLandingham

9/29/2021 06:13:12 pm

Am a bit late to this party, but find the thread interesting -- not so much whether speech crimes in the abstract can ever justify pretrial confinement (of course they can -- threatening to kill someone, a classic speech crime, will land one there pretty quickly in the right circumstances), but whether a continued pattern of disobedience can. That is, if an officer continuously fails to obey orders, at what point does their continued disobedience, even if the particular order disobeyed seems not so serious in the big scheme of things, become such a bad example, is destabilizing to good order and discipline, that it warrants PTC? It's the disobedience here that seems the worse alleged offense, IMHO, versus his rants. Of course we don't know the whole story, the details those in command are privy to, but throwing this out there. Also, on the mental health side, if concern about his mental heath was the paramount issue, shouldn't a psychiatrist be involuntarily hospitalizing him versus a lay commander ordering PTC? Separately, is PTC linked to an increased chance of suicide? Finally, why the blank are lay commanders (not judges) allowed to order PTC in the first place in 2021?! Shameful. 18th Century military justice.

Burt B

9/29/2021 07:46:12 pm

I assume you mean judge advocates versus judges? In what system do judges make an initial confinement decision? That is made by the state/DA and then reviewed by judges.

CTC

9/30/2021 08:06:41 am

I don't love the idea of him being jailed, but I can't reflexively dismiss it as an abuse of discretion, either. I do expect tomes of UCI motions. Still, I can't abide the sentiment that Lt Col Scheller's disobedience "was not so serious in the grand scheme."

His disobedience was national news and a topic of conversation across all forms of social media. I'm surprised it wasn't characterized as an attempted mass mutiny. It might've died down lately, but he set a precedent.

I'm glad we haven't seen copycats attempting career suicide in similar fashion. That was another prediction of mine--glad to be wrong, for now.

It's not hyperbolic to say that his conduct was service discrediting.

His conduct further politicized the military, dragged it deeper into the morass of public criticism, and further eroded the public trust in the only institution that can credibly protect our national security. His intent might've been pure, but his execution aided only the polemics and our enemies who've been attempting for years on social media what Lt Col Scheller did in a matter of weeks: to weaken America's trust in its public institutions.

It wasn't some misguided criticism in a vacuum; it was the platform that aggravates his conduct. The popularity of his video was foreseeable and he chose the medium. He now gets to lie in the bed he made for himself.

Brenner M. Fissell

9/30/2021 10:08:56 am

well said!

1984

10/1/2021 03:05:05 am

No he did not set a "precedent". There's plenty of stories in the media involving disobedience that made national news. It's just one group is against a Republican President, and the other a Democrat President. As you see, some animals are more equal than other animals.

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