The Law School's Mental Health Advocacy Project is beginning a new advocacy effort this Fall.  Students will represent six combat veterans who have been convicted of one or more homicides while deployed in Iraq or Afghanistan.  All of these men were, at the time of their crimes sufferingg from post-traumatic stress disorder and/or traumatic brain injuries.  Project students will reserach and draft petitions for clemency to President Obama and his Pardon Attorney Deborah Leff '77.  

Speaking at this event will be US Army Sergeant Michael Williams and Kari Primeau, the wife of US Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales. Both will speak candidly and openly--as soldier and spouse--about what it is like to be convicted of murdering foreign nationals during the US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Sgt. Williams was convicted in 2005 of murdering two Iraqi enemy combatants.  He was paroled from Fort Leavenworth in 2014.  Sgt. Bales served four combat deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan.  In 2013, he was convicted of 16 counts of premeditated murder and six counts of attempted murder against Afghani citizens.  He was sentenced to life without parole and is confined at Fort Leavenworth.

Everyone in the Law School community is welcome to attend.