SAVING SANDOVAL U.S. Army Sniper accused of murder in Iraq

Attorney Craig Drummond manages to survive and hour with Burl Barer, Howard Lapides, Mark Boyer and Frank J. Hagen as he explains his defense strategy in the strange case of US Sniper Jorge Sandoval, Jr. who was accused of murder while on duty in Iraq.  Seems someone wanted to throw Sandoval (and everybody else) under some giant Army bus! 

Saving Sandoval is available for order from Wild Blue Press.

Given all of the information known at the time, Hensley directed Sandoval to take the shot. Sandoval complied and what happened next was a spiraling of events. Many of the actions of the entire sniper section came under question, particularly an event two weeks later in which a suspected insurgent was shot at close range with a pistol by another member of Sandoval’s team. Rumors began to spread about the legitimacy of actions by the sniper section, and Army Criminal Investigation Command descended upon the unit and began interrogating Soldiers, trying to link Sandoval and others to war crimes, including murder. Eventually Sandoval faced a court-martial for murder, for his first shooting as a sniper. Later another murder charge was added, for simply being in the same area where the other individual was shot at close range.

Saving Sandoval is the story of the trial told by the men who were there–Specialist Sandoval and his assigned military defense attorney, Captain Craig W. Drummond. The book quotes testimony from both the pre-trial hearings and the trial itself, which took place in a makeshift courtroom on a U.S. military installation just outside of Baghdad. The Associated Press and reporters from around the world were present throughout the trial. The jury was comprised of senior military and enlisted officers, all of whom were then deployed to Iraq.