An Army Court of Criminal Appeals has vacat­ed the death sen­tence of William Kreutzer, a Fort Bragg sol­dier who was sent to the military’s death row for killing a fel­low sol­dier and wound­ing oth­ers in 1995. The Court cit­ed a num­ber of grounds for the rul­ing that opens the door for rehear­ings on some charges and the sen­tence. For exam­ple, Kreutzer’s attor­neys failed to ade­quate­ly explain the sig­nif­i­cance of their client’s men­tal health prob­lems for the pan­el that deter­mined his guilt and sen­tence. In the rul­ing, Col. James S. Currie not­ed, ​“Appellant’s tri­al can be summed up in one sen­tence: Three defense coun­sel who lacked the abil­i­ty and expe­ri­ence to defend this cap­i­tal case were fur­ther ham­pered by the mil­i­tary judge’s erro­neous deci­sion to deny them nec­es­sary expert assis­tance, there­by ren­der­ing the con­test­ed find­ings and the sen­tence unre­li­able.” Court doc­u­ments revealed that Kreutzer had con­sid­ered sui­cide at age 16 and ​“fan­ta­sized out loud” about killing fel­low sol­diers after they teased him and played prac­ti­cal jokes on him. The Appeals Court crit­i­cized the tri­al judge for refus­ing to grant a defense request for a ​“mit­i­ga­tion spe­cial­ist,” who could explain how Kreutzer’s men­tal health prob­lems con­tributed to his actions. See Military Death Penalty. See also Representation.

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