Civilian trial for Marine accused of murdering civilians in Iraq

The PE reports that a former Marine accused of killing two civilians in Iraq was found not guilty by a local jury. Interestingly, Jose Nazario was working as a probationary police officer in RivCo when he was arrested. Apparently, an investigation into four deaths of Iraqi civilians by Nazario's squad let the Federal govt to believe that Narzario killed the men without justification. Interestingly, there were only two witnesses both of whom refused to testify. Why? because they were Nazario's squad members who were also going to be charged with murder. The fifth amendment affords them the right to not testify against themselves. Without these two there was no way to prove that the four dead men were not hostiles.

An interesting side issue is why the federal prosecutor brought this case in the first instance when he had to know there was little reason to believe he could prove his case beyond a reasonable doubt. The defense argued that "the prosecution had failed to prove the men were not resisting and that any crime was committed." That seems pretty obvious.