15 January 2010 By
Dahr Jamail The Army has filed charges for a
special court-martial against Spc. Alexis Hutchinson,
a single mother of a one-year-old baby. Hutchinson
missed her deployment to Afghanistan late last year
when her child-care plans for her son, Kamani, fell
through at the last minute. Hutchinson and her attorneys had
been working with the Army in good faith to resolve
her situation administratively, rather than through
the criminal process, and still hoped that would have
been the most fair and compassionate way for the Army
to deal with the difficult situation. Maj. Daniel Gallagher is the rear
detachment commander of the 3rd Infantry Division, and
is, according to Hutchinson’s civilian attorney Rai
Sue Sussman, “the one who signed the charges [against
Hutchinson].” “I am disappointed in Major Daniel
Gallagher’s decision to go ahead with filing charges,
which shows a lack of compassion for this young mother
and her infant son, and a lack of discretion in
dealing with the situation fairly,” Sussman wrote in a
press release issued on Thursday. “The situation tends
to show that the Army is not able to effectively and
humanely counsel Army families in this situation. An
infant and his mother were forcibly separated, when
other options were available to the commander. This
was a failure of her chain of command to properly
counsel her, given her situation. On top of all this,
criminal charges seem unnecessary.” Sussman explained that the Army
claims to have offered to counsel Hutchinson with
other options, but said she “can’t imagine that they
gave an offer beyond foster care - but they were
unspecific in their press release [released Thursday]
about what that child care would be.” The military’s press release on the
matter stated that Hutchinson’s command had informed
her of other options to take care of her child, but
that she had refused these options. Sussman said she speaks with
Hutchinson regularly, and knows that government care
for her infant is not something her client wants to
do. In previous instances when soldiers
deploy and leave a child in state custody, when the
parent returns they often experience problems in
exercising their parental rights, and in some cases
have even lost custody of their child. Sussman explained to Truthout that
she was taken aback by the Army’s recent decision,
particularly when she felt that negotiations were
making progress. “First we offered and put in an
application for a Chapter 5A discharge for parenthood,
which is an honorable discharge,” she said, “But more
recently we were willing to take a misconduct
discharge to get things over with. But her commander
rejected that and filed criminal charges. Hutchinson
would really just like to put this all behind her.” Sussman feels that “in terms of
equity and efficiency, and even punishment, I think
the Army could do this a different way than a special
court martial.” If Hutchinson is found guilty
during a special court-martial, she could face up to a
one year detention in a military brig, forfeiture of a
percentage or all of her pay while in jail and has a
guarantee she will not receive an honorable discharge
from the military upon completion of her jail time,
thereby forfeiting at least some, and likely all, of
her benefits. “To me, when we are willing to get
an other-than-honorable discharge for the purposes of
ending this situation and having some stability for
her child, it’s disappointing that he [Major
Gallagher] feels it needs to be a criminal charge,”
Sussman told Truthout, “They are throwing the book at
her, even though she’s already been punished a lot.
She’s had her child taken away from her, she did three
days in jail when she was arrested in November, then
three weeks on 24-hour watch sleeping on a cot in the
recreation room [at her barracks] after that, and then
assigned to post.” Currently, Hutchinson remains
assigned to Hunter Army Airfield near Savannah,
Georgia, where she has been posted since February
2008. In mid-November 2009, Hutchinson
was jailed and threatened with a court-martial if she
did not agree to deploy to Afghanistan. At the time,
her son was placed into a county foster care system. Prior to this, Hutchinson was,
according to the family care plan of the US Army,
allowed to fly to California and leave her son with
her mother, Angelique Hughes of Oakland. However, after a week of caring for
the child, Hughes realized she was unable to care for
Kamani along with her other duties of caring for a
daughter with special-needs, her ailing mother and an
ailing sister. In late October, Angelique Hughes
told Hutchinson and her commander, Captain Gassant,
that she would be unable to care for Kamani after all.
The Army then gave Hutchinson an extension of time in
order to enable her to find someone else to care for
Kamani. Meanwhile, Hughes brought Kamani back to
Georgia to be with his mother. However, only a few days before
Hutchinson’s original deployment date, she was told by
the Army she would not get the time extension after
all, and would have to deploy, despite not having
found anyone to care for her child. Faced with this choice, Specialist
Hutchinson chose not to show up for her plane to
Afghanistan. The military arrested her and placed her
child in the county foster care system. At that time, Sussman told Truthout,
“I think they didn’t believe her that she was unable
to find someone to care for her infant. They think
she’s just trying to get out of her deployment. But
she’s just trying to find someone she can trust to
take care of her baby. She has never intended to get
out of her deployment.” Hutchinson’s mother flew to Georgia
and took temporary custody of the baby, but was
quickly overwhelmed and did not feel able to provide
long-term care for the child. At the time, Sussman told Truthout
that the Army’s JAG attorney, Capt. Ed Whitford “told
me they thought her chain of command thought she was
trying to get out of her deployment by using her child
as an excuse.” Major Gallagher also told Sussman
in November that he did not believe it was a real
family crisis, and that Hutchinson’s “mother should
have been able to take care of the baby.” In addition, according to Sussman,
a First Sergeant Gephart “told me he thought she
[Hutchinson] was pulling her family care plan stuff to
get out of her deployment.” Sussman hopes that they are able to
resolve the situation with a good solution for
Hutchinson, “where she’s not separated from her child
and not given a criminal conviction. So I hope she can
either beat the court martial or find a good
resolution by working with the Army. But I’m pretty
frustrated that they still want to punish her, even
though she’s been fully cooperative with them from the
very beginning.” When Hutchinson returned from her
holiday break last week, she brought Kamani with her.
According to Sussman, Hutchinson hopes that if she is
taken to jail again, she is given notice so that she
can make proper arrangements for her son. Sussman is clear about what she
feels the Army has done to mishandle the situation:
“The whole situation arose in large part because it
was a failure of her chain of command to properly
counsel her when this began, and now they are still
failing to give her compassion and discretion when her
child is involved, and they are treating her like
there is no child involved and there was no excuse for
her not to show up. When in reality, she was forced to
choose between her child and her mission, which is
obviously a difficult choice.” Comments 💬 التعليقات |