Adjunct Professor Lawrence Brennan was quoted in a Navy Times article about the collisions of the USS Fitzgerald and the USS John S. McCain.
The Navy has quietly dropped its pursuit of negligent homicide charges against the former commanding officer of a warship that collided with a tanker near Singapore last summer, killing 10 sailors.
Earlier this year, the service announced it would seek negligent homicide charges against Cmdr. Alfredo Sanchez, who commanded the destroyer John S. McCain on Aug. 21 when it collided with a larger vessel in busy west Pacific waters, crushing or drowning 10 shipmates.
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The Navy officer who Navy officials said is Sanchez’s attorney did not respond to requests for comment this week.
Trying Sanchez in a special court-martial instead of general court-martial suggests the Navy “was not intent on obtaining serious punishment if the CO was convicted,” according to Lawrence Brennan, a retired Navy captain, military attorney and professor at the Fordham University School of Law in New York.