Adjunct Professor Lawrence Brennan was quoted in a Stars and Stripes article about the legal battle involving the collision of the USS Fitzgerald.
The court-martial of Cmdr. Bryce Benson, who was the commanding officer of the USS Fitzgerald when it was involved in a deadly 2017 collision, has taken a new turn.
A military judge has disqualified Navy Adm. Frank Caldwell from serving as the convening authority in Benson’s case, effectively pausing the legal action against him and raising the possibility that the charges could be dismissed.
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“It’s a major win” for Benson and his legal team, said Lawrence B. Brennan, a law professor at Fordham University School of Law who is a retired Navy captain who served in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps. “I would say that it is improbable that either the vice chief or the CNO could act as convening authorities in these cases. It’s highly improbable.”…
Brennan, who has been following cases related to the separate, deadly collisions of the Fitzgerald and the USS John S. McCain, which left 10 sailors dead in August 2017, said it’s clear that Caldwell compromised his neutral role.“The guy got out of his role as a judicial officer and joined … the public affairs position,” Brennan said. “He didn’t remember his duty as convening authority, his quasijudicial responsibility.”