{"id":42127,"date":"2019-04-20T19:48:32","date_gmt":"2019-04-20T19:48:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/uncategorized\/2019\/04\/20\/prosecutors-celebrate-victory-after-ruling-in-gallagher-war-crimes-case\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T19:41:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T19:41:09","slug":"prosecutors-celebrate-victory-after-ruling-in-gallagher-war-crimes-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/news\/your-navy\/2019\/04\/20\/prosecutors-celebrate-victory-after-ruling-in-gallagher-war-crimes-case\/","title":{"rendered":"Prosecutors celebrate victory after ruling in Gallagher war crimes case"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The military judge overseeing the court-martial proceedings for accused SEAL war criminal Chief Special Warfare Operator Edward \u201cEddie\u201d Gallagher has ruled that information gleaned from his seized cell phones can be used as evidence by the prosecution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Capt. Aaron Rugh<\/a>\u2019s decision late Friday clears prosecutors to use a string of text messages and other data they believe will buttress their allegations that Gallagher, 39, stabbed to death a seriously wounded and unarmed Islamic State prisoner of war during a 2017 deployment to Iraq and later tried to cover up the killing and intimidate potential witnesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A spokesman for Navy Region Southwest, the convening authority in Gallagher\u2019s court-martial trial at Naval Base San Diego, declined comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gallagher\u2019s civilian defense attorney, Timothy Parlatore<\/a>, downplayed the significance of the ruling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t really change anything on our end,\u201d said Parlatore, a former Navy Surface Warfare Officer. \u201cIt certainly won\u2019t affect the outcome of this case.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Parlatore<\/a> declined to comment further, saying he couldn\u2019t directly discuss the decision due to a different ruling by Rugh on Thursday that imposed a gag order prohibiting attorneys from discussing the court\u2019s decisions, motions and other court filings in the SEAL\u2019s case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for a Gallagher text message that seems to suggest that he slayed someone with a knife, Parlatore wrote it off as the \u201cdark humor\u201d shared between combat-hardened men.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And Parlatore said Team Gallagher was celebrating a Friday victory, too. He said that Naval Special Warfare Group 1 commodore Capt. Matthew D. Rosenbloom agreed to key concessions on the SEAL suspect\u2019s living arrangements<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gallagher is now allowed a phone to call his attorneys and family members from pretrial quarters at Naval Medical Center San Diego, where he was moved after a brief stay at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\u2019ll also get a computer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A tweeting President Donald J. Trump on March 30 ordered the Navy to remove Gallagher from Naval Consolidated Brig Miramar to less restrictive conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Special Warfare Operator Chief Edward \u201cEddie\u201d Gallagher in Iraq in 2017. (courtesy photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Only moments after Rugh on Thursday ordered a blanket gag order on the Gallagher case, Navy Times began receiving what would become thousands of pages of legal motions and orders, plus internal Naval Criminal Investigative Service files, Naval Special Warfare emails, photographs and other highly relevant records tied to the trial, a deluge of documents that kept flowing well into Saturday morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gallagher has been charged with premeditated murder in connection with the Iraqi fighter\u2019s death, attempted murder for allegedly shooting an old man and a child and other crimes tied to what military prosecutors said was an ongoing attempt to obstruct justice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Jan. 11, defense attorneys filed a motion to suppress all evidence harvested from what became known as cell phone X, cell phone Y and cell phone Z.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gallagher\u2019s legal team argued that investigators unlawfully seized all three phones, at times violating Gallagher\u2019s Fourth<\/a> and Fifth<\/a> amendment rights, which protect Americans from unreasonable surveillance, searches and seizures, including safeguarding criminal suspects from self-incrimination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The phone known as cell phone X, Gallagher\u2019s attorneys wrote, was an iPhone confiscated during a June 20 pat-down frisk before NCIS attempted to interrogate him, without his lawyer present and with agents allegedly relying on a verbal command authorization for search and seizure \u2014 what\u2019s called \u201cCASS\u201d in the military \u2014 that didn\u2019t adequately specify what was to be taken.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While detained, Gallagher was ordered to unlock his phone to allow NCIS to search it. He tried to open it with his fingerprint, but it shook and wouldn\u2019t open, so he punched in the pass code, which let agents seize the evidence on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\t