On TV, JAGs always “get their man” — but in real life, the military investigators “talked the talk” but “did not walk the walk,” says a Manhattan federal judge.
Judge Colleen McMahon says a case she is overseeing has given her a “peek into the real-life NCIS and JAG.”
It involves a Marine criminally charged for an accidental 2008 shooting in Iraq that left a Navy corpsman partially blind — and it is “not a tale that inspires confidence in our criminal justice system,” McMahon said.
On Thursday, she dismissed one of the government’s charges against Marine Cpl. Wilfredo Santiago on due-process grounds, but allowed the case to continue.
She blasted the military’s Judge Advocate General’s corps for not pursuing Santiago and for letting him go with an honorable discharge.
“The real JAG dropped the ball, and did so deliberately, not accidentally or inadvertently . . . By the time civilian authorities had both the inclination and the jurisdiction to pick the matter up, the United States Marines were long gone from Iraq,” the judge said.
“Needless to say, the investigators on ‘NCIS.’ the television show, are dogged in their pursuit of criminals, while the lawyers of the JAG corps always get their man (or woman),” she wrote in her decision. “While NCIS did its job, JAG only talked the talk — it did not walk the walk.” Rich Calder