This photo shows Bowe Bergdahl, an U.S. Army soldier who was captured by the Taliban in 2009 after walking off his base in Afghanistan and held hostage of five years. A federal appeals court said Tuesday that a judge that vacated Bergdahl’s conviction in 2023 didn’t have jurisdiction over the case. File Photo courtesy of the U.S. Army.
Sept. 2 (UPI) — A judge who vacated the conviction of former U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl in 2023 lacked the jurisdiction to do so, a federal appeals court ruled.
The case of Bergdahl, who walked off an Army base in Afghanistan in 2009 and was captured by the Taliban, has stretched for years. The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Tuesday reinstates Bergdahl’s dishonorable discharge from the military and other punishment.
“Obviously, we are disappointed by the outcome,” said Eugene R. Fidell, Bergdahl’s lawyer, The New York Times reported. “This entire controversy has lasted a very long time. But it continues to be an important case, not only for Sergeant Bergdahl but for the integrity of the military justice system.”
Fidell said Bergdahl can request a rehearing before the same panel or seek a review by the entire appeals court or the U.S. Supreme Court.
In the ruling Tuesday, the judges said the case “presents nuanced questions regarding jurisdiction and the evolving relationship between [federal district] courts and military courts.”
“Jurisdiction here turns on whether the remedy sought falls within a district court’s power to grant,” the ruling said. “Because Article III district courts lack jurisdiction on collateral review to vacate court-martial judgments, the District Court lacked jurisdiction over Bergdahl’s claims. Therefore, we remand the case to the District Court to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction.”
In July 2023, federal district court Judge Reggie Walton vacated all judgments against Bergdahl after Oct. 16, 2017.
That is the date Bergdahl pleaded guilty to desertion and misbehavior before the enemy for his actions in Afghanistan — and the date the military judge in that court martial, Jeffery Nance, applied to become an immigration judge during President Donald Trump‘s first term, Walton’s ruling said. The Justice Department later hired Nance.
During his first presidential campaign, Trump called Bergdahl “a dirty, rotten traitor” and called for him to be executed or returned to the Taliban.
Nance refused a defense request to dismiss the case against Bergdahl because of those remarks, saying he was “completely unaffected” by them and that Bergdahl would still have a fair sentencing hearing. That hearing took place at the end of October 2023.
Walton, in his 2023 ruling, said that based on Nance’s application as an immigration court judge, any reasonable person could conclude that Nance’s impartiality was jeopardized.
An Army investigation found in 2015 that Bergdahl intended to hike to another Army post and report issues in his unit when he left his base in Afghanistan in 2009. He was captured not long after leaving and held and tortured by the Taliban over five years. In 2014, President Barack Obama secured Bergdahl’s release in a prison exchange.