A “Perry Mason moment” is a dramatic revelation from the witness box during a trial that completely up-ends the proceedings. They are extremely rare in real life. A real-life Perry Mason moment has just occurred in a highly publicized trial. NPR reports:
The war crimes trial of Navy SEAL Chief Edward Gallagher took a dramatic turn Thursday when a lead prosecution witness — another SEAL who has been granted immunity to testify — confessed that he was the actual killer of a 17-year-old ISIS prisoner.
Special Warfare Operator 1st Class Corey Scott stunned prosecutors as he described a previously unheard version of events, saying he asphyxiated the teenage Islamic fighter as an act of mercy.
Among other charges related to his 2017 military service in Iraq, Gallagher is accused of killing the insurgent.
Scott began his witness testimony as prosecutors had expected, KPBS reporter Steve Walsh told NPR. Like several other witnesses who have taken the stand earlier this week, Scott first said Gallagher plunged a knife into the neck of the wounded ISIS captive as they were providing him with medical care.
But Scott’s account radically diverged from the familiar narrative during the defense’s cross-examination when he revealed that “it was in fact he who killed [the combatant] by closing off an airway to a breathing tube for the wounded fighter and then he slowly watched him die,” Walsh said.
He claims that he was convinced that the Iraqis would have tortured the boy to death and his intention was to save him from that.
Was it murder or mercy? Or both? Was it a war crime?
No one should condone the murder of a captured enemy. No one should be so naive as the Private Ryan scenario of released soldier later shooting Captain Miller.
That said. None of us was there. The whole story is murky; there are starkly competing narratives. And others play by different rules than we do. Factor it all in before you go to war, and before you start arm chair quarterbacking from your Lazy Boy. War is filled with atrocities. Who knows the real story here?
The guy had immunity. They had gone over his story many times. He is a friend of the defendant. Pretty helpful to his friend to make this confession now.
Steve