Army Col. Jeffery Nance’s decision Monday to delay a sentencing hearing for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl so he can weigh comments that President Donald Trump made about the soldier might not change things, but it shows that the judge is being careful, legal observers said.

The issue, whether Trump exercised unlawful command influence in suggesting last week that he stood by a series of derogatory statements he made about Bergdahl while campaigning for president, could end with Nance throwing out the charges.

But Nance has previously rejected defense arguments that Trump’s comments made a fair trial impossible. Nance said he would decide the matter again Wednesday.

Bergdahl, 31, of Hailey, Idaho, pleaded guilty a week ago at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to desertion and misbehavior before the enemy for leaving his remote base in Afghanistan in 2009. Freed in 2014 in a controversial prisoner exchange after spending almost five years as a Taliban captive, he faces up to life in prison on the misbehavior charge.

Nance directed pointed questions to prosecutors about the possible effect the president’s comments might have on the public perception of the case, the Associated Press reported. A Washington Post account of the proceedings said Nance “indicated” and “appeared” to suggest that he was reconsidering previous rulings.

“I don’t have any doubt whatsoever that I can be fair and impartial in the sentencing in this matter,” the judge said in an hourlong session.

Lawyers describe unlawful command influence as the “mortal enemy of military justice,” something that typically occurs among lower-ranking officers at the division or brigade level, said St. Mary’s University School of Law Professor Jeff Addicott.

“There’s no precedent for the unlawful command influence reaching to this (presidential) level,” he said. “If I had cases in the past, I could give you a gauge, but this is uncharted territory for the doctrine of unlawful command influence.”

In one case that Addicott prosecuted, in which a special operations forces soldier was accused of hiring a hit man to kill an officer, a battalion commander had told subordinates to not talk with defense lawyers about it, prompting an appeals court to throw out the conviction. Addicott said he had been unaware of the interference and agreed with the court’s action.

Neither he nor other lawyers interviewed Monday could recall a conviction that was thrown out because of a president’s comments, but they also agreed that there has never been a case like this one. Trump lambasted Bergdahl repeatedly on the campaign trail. Last week, the president made a brief statement that he couldn’t say anything more about Bergdahl’s case, adding, “but I think people have heard my comments in the past.”

Bergdahl has said he planned to walk 19 miles to another Army outpost in Afghanistan to call attention to problems with his unit. Army investigators in pretrial testimony have described the conditions of his captivity as brutal and noted he escaped and was recaptured several times. The Army said some soldiers were injured during exhaustive months of searching after Bergdahl’s disappearance.

In speeches and interviews during the presidential campaign, Trump denounced the soldier as “a dirty, rotten traitor,” a “dirty, no-good traitor” and a “horrible traitor,” saying Bergdahl “went to the other side” and “negotiated with terrorists.” Trump called him “the worst,” “no good,” “this bum,” a “whack job” and a “piece of garbage” who deserved execution.

Nance’s action surprised South Texas College of Law Professor Geoffrey Corn, who said it underscored how serious the judge’s concerns were that Trump might have crossed a legal line and jeopardized the prosecution. But he and other experts saw it mainly as a marker for an eventual appeal.

“If you really want to make a statement about the pernicious nature of unlawful command influence, can you imagine a better case to send that message?” asked Corn, an expert on the law of war. “Still, I think he will conclude that he is immune from it — but by adding this to the record, he is helping Bergdahl in terms of the appellate record.”

Nance is being careful, agreed retired Air Force Lt. Col. Rachel Vanlandingham and St. Mary’s School of Law Professor David Schlueter.

Schlueter said Nance appeared to be trying to make the record clear for an appeals court.

“He’s being prudent, he’s being careful, he’s being wise, he’s taking the time,” he said.

Bergdahl is the latest in a long line of military defendants to claim that their cases were tainted by unlawful command influence, dubbed UCI by lawyers.

“No president has gone after an individual like this in modern history. President Nixon was challenged for UCI based on his characterization of My Lai as a travesty,” said Vanlandingham, a professor at Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles, referring to the case of soldiers accused in an infamous massacre of civilians in Vietnam.

But Nixon “didn’t go after one accused, like (Trump) has,” she added.

Neither did President Barack Obama when he issued a stern zero-tolerance policy for troops committing sexual assault, though Vanlandingham said she believes that Obama’s statement did constitute unlawful command influence.

Obama, calling sexual assault an “outrage” and a “crime,” told then-Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel that he had no tolerance of those committing assaults. The president stated, “We’re going to communicate this again to folks up and down the chain in areas of authority, and I expect consequences.”

He added, “If we find out somebody’s engaging in this stuff, they’ve got to be held accountable, prosecuted, stripped of their positions, court-martialed, fired, dishonorably discharged — period,” he said.

But lawyers defending airmen charged with sex crimes at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland failed to convince a series of judges that Obama’s comments should cause them to throw out the cases in proceedings there.

Nance had ruled against prior defense motions that claimed that Trump as a candidate had tainted Bergdahl’s case. The defense, led by Yale Law School lecturer Eugene Fidell, cited Trump’s latest comments at a news conference last week as proving that he held the same views as president as he did as a candidate.

Prosecutors argued that Trump’s comments didn’t reaffirm his campaign trail criticism of Bergdahl and were narrowly focused on answering a reporter, but Nance said he had a “hard time” with that interpretation, the AP reported.

“The member of the public that we are interested in maintaining confidence in the military justice system … is going to be influenced by context,” the judge said.

Retired Lt. Col. Dru Brenner-Beck, a former Army lawyer who knows Nance, described him as “a thoughtful and careful judge advocate and military judge” who was “methodical.”

“I am sure he has carefully researched all aspects of the unlawful influence motions that have plagued this case from its beginnings,” she said. “I think readers should interpret his comments to mean that he will evaluate each and every aspect of the unlawful command influence motion carefully and fully.”

Addicott said Nance could toss the case but doubted that will happen. Taking his time is “the right thing to do,” Addicott said.

There are other options. Nance could recuse himself and ask for another judge to take over the punishment phase of the case. He also could limit the sentence to one that would be judged under a less-harsh legal proceeding called a special court-martial.

In that scenario, Vanlandingham said, Nance could hand Bergdahl a sentence of up to 12 months in prison, a bad-conduct discharge and a fine or order a forfeiture of pay and reduction to the lowest rank. He could receive a combination of three months’ hard labor without confinement and nine months behind bars.

“I think he’s going to say there is UCI and his remedy is he will take it into account at sentencing,” Vanlandingham predicted, adding that Bergdahl could go free if the case is settled as a special court-martial. “Either way, the judge could say, ‘No punishment.’”

Whatever happens, observers think that Nance is negotiating a legal minefield under a bright media spotlight one step at a time.

“I would not expect a different conclusion than what he has ruled before,” said Joseph Jordan, a veteran military lawyer with offices at Fort Hood and Fort Sill, Oklahoma. “The whole nation is watching. The gravity and weight of this decision will have far-reaching effects regardless of which way the judicial pendulum swings.”

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