Coburn Gets Immunity

Today the chief accuser against Lt. Pantano was granted immunity from prosecution - at the defense’s request.

Charles Gittins, civilian attorney for Pantano, requested immunity for Sgt. Daniel Coburn, the Marine whose accusations of murder started an investigation that has ultimately led to the Article 32 hearing going on all this week into today.

As we all know, Coburn’s got credibility issues; up to and including perjury on the stand earlier in the week. He was refusing to take the stand to finish his cross-examination at the hands of Gittins unless he got immunity. Gittins said he had another “5 or 6 hours” worth of questions for Coburn, mostly dealing with the events last April.

The granting of immunity puts Coburn back on the stand as soon as possible to finish out his testimony. I’ll keep you posted.

Here’s a question for the legal people that post here - Will Coburn’s immunity extend to falsely accusing an officer if this all swings in Pantano’s favor? Or does it only extend to his perjury and failure to obey a direct order?

If it IS blanket immunity, I don’t believe it’s fair to allow Coburn to walk away from this.

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