Sentencing begins in Bergdahl case
Dramatic testimony expected as hearing gets underway.
RALEIGH, N.C. — The fate of Bowe Bergdahl — the Army sergeant who pleaded guilty to endangering his comrades by leaving his post in 2009 in Afghanistan — now rests in the hands of a judge.
A sentencing hearing for Bergdahl starts Monday at Fort Bragg and is expected to feature dramatic testimony about soldiers and a Navy SEAL badly hurt while they searched for the missing Bergdahl, who was held captive for five years by Taliban allies after leaving his post. Bergdahl faces up to life in prison on charges of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy after pleading guilty to the charges last week.
Bergdahl made his plea without striking a deal with prosecutors for a lesser punishment, opting instead for a move known as a “naked plea,” in hopes of leniency from the judge. The plea, legal experts say, may be a sign that the evidence against Bergdahl was strong.
Eric Carpenter, a former Army lawyer who teaches law at Florida International University, said a naked plea can be advantageous by allowing the defense to refrain from agreeing to certain facts that it might otherwise have to concede to under a plea deal.
Greg Rinckey, a former Army prosecutor and defense attorney now in private practice, said such a plea is risky.
“You don’t plead someone out naked without weighing those risks,” Rinckey said.
The judge, Army Col. Jeffery Nance, will also have to resolve last-minute arguments by defense attorneys that President Donald Trump has unfairly swayed the court-martial with new comments about the highly politicized case. During the presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly called Bergdahl a “traitor.” The defense argues that remarks made by Trump as late as last week show that he harbors the same view now that he is commander in chief. A White House statement on Friday said, while not mentioning Bergdahl by name, that all military personnel in the justice process should use their independent judgment and that any case should be “resolved on its own facts.”
Bergdahl’s lawyers are hoping that the five years that he spent as a Taliban captive will win him some leniency from the judge. Bergdahl, 31, has said he was caged, kept in darkness and beaten. He said he tried to escape more than a dozen times.
The plea came after several pretrial rulings against the defense. Perhaps most significant was the judge’s decision in June to allow evidence of the searchers’ wounds at sentencing. The judge ruled that a Navy SEAL and an Army National Guard sergeant wouldn’t have wound up in separate firefights that left them wounded if they hadn’t been searching for Bergdahl.
While calling the wounded men “heroes,” Bergdahl’s lawyers have argued their client can’t be blamed for a long chain of events that included decisions by others on the searches.