US ARMY JAG Capt. Christopher Graveline, formerly of Warner, NH and the Franklin Pierce Law Center, is playing a major role in a case that the whole world is watching. He is one of three Army lawyers assigned to prosecute reservists accused of torturing and humiliating prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad.

Graveline, a 1998 FPLC graduate and a New Hampshire Bar member who entered the Army Judge Advocate General Corps immediately upon graduation, is no stranger to high-profile cases. While at law school, he was hired as a summer intern at the US Attorney's Office for the District of New Hampshire in Concord where he worked with Assistant US Attorneys Michael Connolly and David Vincinanzo on a three-month trial prosecuting a ring of armed robbers whose crimes included a 1994 incident in which two drivers were abducted and killed in Hudson. In his first year as a lawyer in the Army, he drew the assignment of co-counsel in prosecuting a soldier at Fort Campbell accused of the fatal brutal beating of a gay soldier -a case that made headlines across the country as an example of the antipathy toward homosexuals in the military.

Graveline was due to appear in court in the Baghdad convention center on Oct. 20 for a full-day hearing on the guilty sentencing of Staff Sgt. Ivan Frederick, one of the members of the Maryland-based Military Police Reserve unit charged in the Abu Ghraib torture cases. In one of several differences between civilian and military trial procedures, a guilty plea in a military trial is reviewed at a full-scale hearing where a judge hears evidence on aggravating and mitigating circumstances and adjudges a sentence -usually on the same day. The defendant, who has previously entered into an agreement with the commanding general and prosecution limiting punishment, then receives the lower of the two penalties.

(In another connection between the Abu Ghraib cases and New Hampshire, Frederick's civilian attorney is Weare resident Gary Myers, a member of the District of Columbia Bar but not a member of the NH Bar. See accompanying article for Myers' comments on the case.)

Earlier this month, Graveline, then working in Washington, agreed to speak to Bar News about aspects of his work, avoiding substantive discussion of the pending cases and future investigations.

Graveline was on assignment in Heidelberg, Germany, when he got a call saying that he had one week to wrap up his current work and report to Baghdad to join the prosecution team being formed to bring criminal charges against soldiers whose grinning faces amidst acts of cruelty had been recorded and broadcast to the horror of the world. "I was somewhat overwhelmed," said Graveline, 31, of his first reaction, "but didn't have time to react. I had one week to deploy to the desert."

"It wasn't until I got to Iraq that I became aware of the enormity of these cases and the privilege it was for me to be working on them," said Graveline.

Another New Hampshire connection cropped up when Graveline, shortly after arriving at his office in Iraq, noticed that the JAG officer in the adjoining cubicle had an "Old Man of the Mountain" photo on his desk. His neighbor at the office in Baghdad, working on unrelated matters, turned out to be John Coughlin, the former Hillsborough County Attorney mobilized to active duty last January.

In Iraq, he went to work with lead prosecutor Maj. Michael Holley and with Capt. Joshua Toman, interviewing Iraqi prisoners, military investigators, and reviewing mounds of records and information.

While Graveline is no stranger to high-profile trials, the extraordinary circumstances and worldwide interest of the Abu Ghraib prosecutions was even more intense-and more immediate. "It's been an interesting experience," he said. "We would finish a hearing and then a few minutes later you'd hear your words being broadcast on CNN." To allow the prosecutors to concentrate on their cases, another Army legal officer in Iraq has been assigned to handle media inquiries on the case for its duration.

After a month working in Iraq, the prosecutors decided that because many key witnesses and sources of information were now stateside, one member of the team should work from Washington. Graveline drew that assignment and he returned to Washington, where he is working seven days a week, 13 or 14 hours per day, a pace that he expects won't let up until the trials take place toward the end of this year and in January. "It definitely puts a strain on your family life," acknowledges Graveline, whose wife is expecting their second child in December. They also have a 19-month-old son.

The fact that only three attorneys are working on a major, high-visibility prosecution is not unusual, Graveline said. "It is a big case," he said, "but instead of spreading the work out among a lot of people, we are devoting three people for whom it is their entire work. When you have too many people involved in something, it can get unruly."

The prosecutors reviewed tens of thousands of pages of evidence and hundreds of digital photos in preparing the case, which first began with the decisions on whom to charge. Those decisions were then submitted as recommendations to the officers of the chain of command and ultimately to the commanding general of the III Corps, who decided who would face courts-martial trials. Graveline said that military prosecutors have the same legal obligations as civilian lawyers to provide "unvarnished" opinions to their "clients," their superiors. "We marshal the evidence and present our honest opinions, as to how the prosecutions should be handled," Graveline said. Ultimately, however, a commanding officer makes the decision, not a legal officer. John D. Hutson, the former Judge Advocate General of the Navy and now the dean of Franklin Pierce Law Center, likened that process to an assistant district attorney submitting a potential prosecution "to the mayor" instead of to the district attorney for the go-ahead decision.

Once it is decided who will be charged, the cases go to Article 32 hearings, which serve the same function as grand jury proceedings. Once cases clear that hurdle, they are on track for court martial trials and their disposition becomes the responsibility of independent military judges.

In the Abu Ghraib cases, two defendants decided to plead guilty; one plea has already been accepted and the other five are being readied for trial. So far, only enlisted men and non-commissioned officers of the 372nd Military Police Company face charges in the prosecution efforts being pursued by Graveline's group. A US Army report issued over the summer identified 27 members of a military intelligence unit who "allegedly requested, encouraged, condoned or solicited" MPs to abuse detainees or to participate in abuse or who used illegal interrogation techniques. Decisions on whether those soldiers will face charges will be made by their respective chains of command.

Among the challenges raised by the defendants was the location of the venue, which remains in Iraq as opposed to being brought stateside. Defense attorneys have charged that keeping the cases in Iraq hampers their effectiveness at presenting evidence and that it will hamper news coverage of the case.

Nevertheless, Graveline knows that the harsh glare of the media spotlight will be trained on his team's courtroom efforts in the next few months as they move ahead with the cases. He also acknowledges the importance of these cases to world opinion. "How we resolve these cases is very important for the military and for our society, " he said.

David Vincinanzo, formerly head of the criminal division at the US Attorney's Office in New Hampshire at the time of the Hudson armed robbery trials, is confident that Graveline, whom he knew as a law student, can handle the pressure he's facing, in part because of the lessons he learned at the federal courthouse on Pleasant Street in Concord.

He recalls that Graveline as a law student "made a very strong impression" on the US Attorney's staff. "He came in and said he wanted to be a prosecutor and said he would do whatever we wanted him to do," Vincinanzo said. "I liked his attitude. It turned out that he was not only a hard worker, but very bright and creative."

Graveline also turned out to be lucky -volunteering at the US Attorney's office as it was preparing for a major prosecution that Vincinanzo said ended up "touching upon every significant federal criminal law issue. It was a great education for Chris. He learned a tremendous amount about criminal procedure working on that case."

And, Vicinanzo said, Graveline understands what happens in a high-profile case. "He knows what it's like. He's used to a case being in the news media every day, and the pressure of multiple defendants filing motions at you every day."

Graveline said his commitment is due to last only for another year, and he is looking at returning to civilian life either in New Hampshire or his home state of Michigan.

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