The Navy captain of the ill-fated USS Fitzgerald pleaded not guilty during the arraignment portion of his court martial Tuesday, setting the stage for a military hearing where the Navy’s own operational shortfalls could be put on trial.
Cmdr. Bryce Benson, who commanded the American warship when it collided with Philippine-flagged shipping vessel near the Japanese coast last June, killing seven sailors, is the only Naval officer charged in the incident who is fighting the case.
He and two other junior officers now face formal charges of negligence and putting a vessel in danger during Tuesday’s arraignment hearing at the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C. The trial date has been set for Jan. 28.
Navy prosecutors opted not to charge Cmdr. Benson with negligent homicide as a result of the accident. In May, Lt.(j.g.) Sarah Coppock, who was the officer of the deck aboard the Fitzgerald during the incident, pleaded guilty to dereliction of duty.
The guilty plea was part of a deal reached between Coppock and the prosecution in exchange for Navy lawyers dropping negligent homicide charges against her.
Prosecutors opted to drop the negligent homicide charges against Cmdr. Benson, after a Navy review of the Fitzgerald incident and another fatal collision involving the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS McCain recommended no junior officers face criminal charges for the incidents, according to USNI News.
Cmdr. Benson was reportedly asleep in his stateroom at the time of the collision, which also crushed his cabin aboard the ship, leaving him hanging on the side of the vessel for 15 minutes before being rescued. The pair of accidents, which were the two deadliest non-combat incidents at sea for the Navy in years, prompted a worldwide 48-hour stand down of all Navy operations.
Cmdr Benson’s defense team is preparing a slew of pre-trial motions and hearings ahead of the January 28 trial, focusing on “the law, the witnesses and the facts” pertaining to the case, a Navy source tells The Washington Times.
“There is a bunch of [case] law to go over before going to trial,” the source said. “This is some novel stuff.”
A critical pre-trial hearing set for mid-November will explore whether Navy leaders sought to make a scapegoat of Cmdr. Benson, in an attempt to paper over readiness problems in the fleet and a operational culture where Navy ships and crews are pushed to the limit.
In a surprising one-page public statement released in May shortly before Coppock’s guilty plea, Lt. Cmdr. Justin Henderson, the head of Cmdr. Benson’s legal team, said the Navy’s leadership has participated in a public smear campaign against his client.
The Navy’s top brass “have repeatedly used public forums to assign guilt, foreclose legitimate defenses and cast unwarranted aspersions” on Cmdr. Benson’s reputation as a Navy officer, ahead of court martial proceedings, Lt. Cmdr. Henderson wrote.
The actions taken by top brass at the Navy Yard in response to the McCain and Fitzgerald incidents were seen as disingenuous, since the operational readiness issues tied to the fatal accidents were already well known to service leaders, sources tell the Times.
Further, the initiation of both Pacific-wide and service-wide reviews ordered by Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson, irked current and former Navy officers and sailors already exasperated by leadership’s handling of the situation.
• Carlo Muñoz can be reached at cmunoz@washingtontimes.com.
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