A former Marine pleaded guilty Thursday in a 2022 firebombing attack on a Planned Parenthood clinic in California, federal prosecutors said.
Chance Brannon, 24, is one of three men charged in the Molotov cocktail attack on the building in Costa Mesa, which occurred while Brannon was an active-duty Marine stationed at Camp Pendleton, officials said.
No one was hurt in the March 13, 2022, incident, which occurred in the early morning when no one was there. The front entrance had some burn damage, and the clinic had to reschedule about 30 appointments.
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Brannon also had a rifle with a Cyrillic message that referred to death and a racial slur, as well as a thumb drive with a recording of the Christchurch, New Zealand, white supremacist mass shooting, the plea deal says in a statement of facts that Brannon agreed to.
Okay, so this was the US DOJ. Since Chance was an active-duty Marine, why isn’t he also being charged by the military? I want his ass in Leavenworth too.
I’m guessing that some punishment already happened. I can’t see the details of it, but he was cited in articles as an “active-duty Marine” as recently as this past summer, when he was arrested, so something happened in the middle to make him a “former Marine”…
Usually, not saying I know this is what is happening, but usually the military waits for civilian courts to charge and find them guilty or not.
Then the military can either Court Martial them on different charges (to prevent double jeopardy), or NJP depending on the crime. I would assume this would be a Court Martial offense.
Not an expert just a guess for my time on active duty.
The Constitutional protection from double jeopardy does not apply across jurisdictions. You can be tried in state and federal court for the same act, and in military court too, if applicable.
In practice, this doesn’t usually happen, you get tried and convicted in one or the other for a single crime. However, you may be tried for different crimes committed in the same act, for example by committing a hate crime, you may be charged by the state government for the act, plus a federal civil rights charge.
And then the court martial will probably say “yeah you’ve already been convicted and you’re going to civilian jail, here’s your dishonorable discharge, get the fuck out”. Unless you did something really messed up and the military wants their pound of flesh too.