SCOTUS declines Cole challenge

NAVAL BASE GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba - The U.S. Supreme Court declined Oct. 16 to consider a pretrial challenge to the upcoming three-week hearing by death-penalty defendant Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, a former CIA captive accused of orchestrating the attack against the USS Cole in October 2000 in which 17 U.S. sailors were killed. It was the second SCOTUS rejection of a “Gitmo” captive's appeal in the last two weeks. Nashiri is accused of orchestrating al-Qaida's suicide bombing of USS Cole in the port of Aden, Yemen. DOD-paid defense lawyers for Nashiri asked the SCOTUS, in Nashiri v Trump, to consider the case as an exception to law that requires conviction before a civilian court review. The decision comes days after the captive’s civilian lawyers quit the case with permission of the Marine general overseeing the war court’s defense teams. The decision left a Navy lieutenant with no death penalty experience that had been accepted by Nashiri. Marine Brig. Gen. John Baker, the Chief Defense Counsel, is looking to hire a new lawyer learned in the practice of capital punishment defense to replace veteran defender Rick Kammen, among those who quit. By law, a capital case can't proceed without a “learned counsel” in court to proceed. It’s unclear what USS Cole case judge Col. Vance Spath will do about an the hearing, which is set to begin Oct. 30. (Source: Miami Herald 010/16/17) Gulf Coast Note: Two of the sailors serving aboard USS Cole - retired Master Chiefs James Parlier and Eric Kafka - had both family and service time along the Gulf Coast. Parlier served as a senior enlisted advisor for two of Naval Hospital Pensacola, Fla., branch medical clinics at Naval Air Technical Training Center (NATTC) Pensacola and the former Naval Station Pascagoula, Miss. Kafka is the son of retired and former command master chief of Naval Hospital Pensacola, Randy Kafka; and served as an instructor at NATTC. USS Cole was built and refurbished at then-Litton Ingalls’ shipyard in Pascagoula.