The Ivan Frederick Court-Martial: The Senior NCO at Abu Ghraib

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Staff Sergeant Ivan “Chip” Frederick was, as the Associated Press described him in 2007, the highest-ranking U.S. soldier convicted of abusing detainees at Abu Ghraib. On October 20, 2004, at a court-martial in Baghdad, he pleaded guilty to eight counts of abusing and humiliating detainees. The next day the military judge sentenced him to eight years, reduction to private, forfeiture of pay, and a dishonorable discharge, the longest sentence in the scandal up to that time. As the noncommissioned officer in charge, he was answerable both for what he did and for the abuse he did not stop. He was paroled in October 2007 after serving about three years, a release his lawyer linked to his cooperation in later prosecutions.

The Frederick Record in Brief

Item Record
Accused Staff Sergeant Ivan "Chip" Frederick, U.S. Army Reserve military police; a corrections officer in civilian life
Forum Court-martial on a military base at Baghdad's international airport; military judge Col. James Pohl
Plea Guilty to eight counts of abusing and humiliating detainees (Oct. 20, 2004)
Sentence Eight years, reduction to private, forfeiture of pay, dishonorable discharge (Oct. 21, 2004)
Release Paroled from military prison at Fort Leavenworth on Oct. 1, 2007, after about three years

Frederick’s Plea Inquiry

NBC News reported on the sentencing that Frederick, “a military policeman who is a corrections officer in civilian life”, admitted “that he hooked up wires on the hands of a detainee who was told he would be electrocuted if he fell off a box and that he forced prisoners to masturbate.” Al Jazeera reported that he “admitted that he could have stopped the abuse.” He told the judge, “I was wrong about what I did and I shouldn’t have done it”.

Two Tracks of Liability for the Senior NCO

A noncommissioned officer in charge of a shift faces exposure on two separate paths under the Uniform Code of Military Justice:

  • What he did. Article 93 punishes cruelty, oppression, or maltreatment of a person “subject to his orders”. The Manual for Courts-Martial says that includes everyone “who by reason of some duty are required to obey the lawful orders of the accused, regardless whether the accused is in the direct chain of command over the person.” Detainees under a guard’s control fall within it. Physical acts can also be charged as assault under Article 128.
  • What he allowed. Article 92 dereliction of duty requires only that the accused “had certain duties”, “knew or reasonably should have known of the duties”, and was derelict in performing them. In the 2010 Graner appeal, the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces described a guard’s “affirmative duty to protect the detainees under his charge from abuse”. A senior NCO who watches the soldiers under him abuse detainees, and does nothing, has failed that duty, even if he never touched anyone himself.

Frederick’s admission that he “could have stopped the abuse” goes to the second track.

The Defense: No Training and Orders From Intelligence

His defense did not deny the conduct. It put the conduct in the context of the facility. Frederick “testified that he was given no training or support in supervising detainees and only learned of regulations against mistreatment after the abuses occurred”, NBC News reported. When he raised issues with commanders, “they told me to do what MI told me to do,” meaning military intelligence. His civilian lawyer, Gary Myers, asked the court to “understand the defense’s point of view that there is corporate responsibility”.

The prosecution answered with the standard that governs orders and training. Army prosecutor Maj. Michael Holley called it “a simple case of right and wrong”: “He’s an adult and capable of telling, as we learned, the difference between right and wrong. How much training do you need to learn that it’s wrong to force a man to masturbate?” The legal rule behind that answer is Rule for Courts-Martial 916(d). Obedience to orders is no defense where “a person of ordinary sense and understanding would have known the orders to be unlawful.” Lack of training can be offered in mitigation. It does not make plainly abusive conduct lawful.

Sentence, Parole, and Cooperation

The eight-year sentence was, as NPR reported on October 21, 2004, “the longest prison sentence yet in connection with the scandal”. Specialist Charles Graner later received 10 years after a contested trial.

The Associated Press, in a report carried by NBC News on October 1, 2007, described Frederick as the highest-ranking U.S. soldier convicted of abusing detainees at Abu Ghraib and reported that he “served about three years of an eight-year sentence”. The AP report in the Lawrence Journal-World’s military blog quoted Myers saying that his client’s cooperation with prosecutors, “including his testimony at the trial in August of final Abu Ghraib defendant Lt. Col. Steven Jordan, aided in his early release.”

Rank Creates Duties

A senior NCO has authority over the people in his charge, and that authority creates duties: to protect the people in custody and to stop and report abuse by subordinates. Frederick’s guilty plea and his admission that he could have stopped what happened show both forms of liability in one record. Claims of absent training and pressure from intelligence personnel can reduce a sentence. They do not move the responsibility for plainly unlawful acts off the person who committed them, or off the leader who let them continue.

Sources

This case study describes a public court-martial record and contemporaneous reporting. It is educational information, not legal advice.

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