![]() Don flew out from Washington D.C., to meet three very stiff military Marine Corps officers and Magic–who was very suspicious of everyone he did not know. He agreed to help me work this case up for nothing more than a plane ticket, a warm bed and some not-so-good food. Don Clarkson as all know who have worked with him, has the gift of softness, calmness and wisdom that he exudes with virtually no words. I called the one person who I knew would have the ability to get these battle hardened Marines to open up. How would I persuade him to trust a civilian psychologist? My client did not even trust his own military lawyers. It would be very difficult to bring someone else–especially any civilian who had not experienced the intense, continuing trauma that they lived day in and day out–into our group. The pain from their loss and their own guilt is just too much to trust with strangers. They do not trust outsiders mostly because they are afraid of being judged. They have learned by necessity their own method of living with that unique kind of grief. If I didn't direct, who could? These Marines are a tight group, and rarely let outsiders in. But as I began my usual scene-setting exercises with Magic, however, I quickly realized that those usual scene-setting exercises would not get us where we needed to go: Magic's story was so complex, and so emotionally-loaded, that I could not learn it if I occupied the role of a director. Once I have this I am able to deliver the story that has the best emotional connection with the jury. This allows me to discover the emotional truth of the event. ![]() ![]() Usually, I direct the scenes myself and once I see the scene with all of the actors I begin to simply reverse myself into the scenes so that I can feel whatever the particular witness was feeling at the time. They faced Courts-martial back in the States, upon Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton.Īs I do in all of my cases I discover the story using the very same TLC techniques we teach at the college. They remained jailed while they stood trial for murder, facing the end of their free lives or even the end of their lives, period (as the prosecution presented the charges as death-eligible). Military police arrested Magic and the other six Marines and one sailor (who was their corpsman). Under the then-operative rules of engagement, Marines could shoot and kill any jihadist whom they caught in the act of planting an I.E.D. The Marines planted a shovel and an AK-47 next to his body, supposedly to create the impression that the goatherder was apprehended and shot while burying an I.E.D. (improvised explosive device) hole from a previous detonation, zip-tied his hands and feet, and then shot the goatherder while he laid helpless in the hole. According to the prosecution, the "Pendleton 8" (as Magic and his co-defendants were called) had broken into the goatherder's house in the middle of the night, dragged him to an old I.E.D. Hamdania and Haditha were well-known refuges for zealot jihadists who used guerilla tactics to destabilize Iraq. The killing took place in Hamdania, an area just outside of Haditha. The prosecution accused Magic and seven of his squadmates of murdering an innocent goatherder while they patrolled behind enemy lines. Training to kill without prejudice or passion, and to wipe the earth clean of all things that would not yield. It is this storied Unit that command sends into the meat grinders, because this unit trains its men harder than any other unit in the world–training to do nothing but kill everything and anything, no matter what. The 3/5 Dark Marines fought through Iwo Jima, Tarawa, Guadalcanal and other godforsaken places during World War II. My client, Corporal Marshall Magincalda ("Magic" as he was known to his Marines), fought in the fiercest and deadliest days of the Battle for Fallujah, as a member of the storied 3/5 Dark Horse Marines. Even the jihadists' exits were booby-trapped, to kill aggressive Marines who pursued them. Even when the Marines could eventually overcome the jihadists' superior positions–while sustaining heavy casualties–the jihadists accessed fallback positions by tunneling through adjoining walls between homes. Access to the jihadists' positions was often limited to a single roadway of approach, and the elevated firing positions and the single roadways channeled the Marines into a single concentrated kill zone. From these concrete houses, the jihadists enjoyed a superior line of vision of the approaching Marines. The enemy took positions in concrete houses, which served as excellent bunkers and ably protected these jihadists. ![]() During this storied battle, the Marines fought so close to the enemy that many kills were by hand and by knife. The Battle for Fallujah represents the fiercest fighting by the United States Marine Corps since the Battle for Hue City in Vietnam and Iwo Jima in WWII. The Journal of The Trial Lawyer's College
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