A US appeals court has ruled that a federal judge did not have the authority to erase former Army sergeant Bowe Bergdahl’s court-martial conviction, restoring the legal force of the punishment imposed after he left his post in Afghanistan.
A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ordered the dismissal of Bergdahl’s claims, finding that a district court could not use a collateral challenge to set aside a military court judgment.
The decision overturns a 2023 ruling by District Judge Reggie Walton, who had vacated orders and rulings made in Bergdahl’s case after October 16 2017. The appeals court said authority to overturn a court-martial judgment rests with tribunals exercising direct military appellate review, rather than federal district courts.
The ruling leaves in place Bergdahl’s 2017 conviction and sentence, including his dishonourable discharge from the US Army, reduction in rank to private and the forfeiture of 1,000 dollars a month in pay for ten months. A military judge rejected a prosecution request for a 14-year prison sentence.
Bergdahl’s legal challenge centred on the conduct of Colonel Jeffery Nance, the military judge who presided over his case. Judge Walton had found that Colonel Nance should have disclosed an application to the Justice Department for a position as an immigration judge while the proceedings were under way.
Colonel Nance used a ruling from Bergdahl’s case as his writing sample for the application, according to the appeals court opinion. The Army Court of Criminal Appeals later upheld Bergdahl’s conviction by two votes to one, while the US Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces affirmed it in a three-to-two decision.
Bergdahl, now 40, left his post near Afghanistan’s Paktika province in June 2009. He told investigators that he had intended to reach another military base and report what he regarded as serious problems within his unit, but he was captured by Taliban-linked fighters hours later.
He spent nearly five years in captivity and was released in 2014 in exchange for five Taliban detainees held at Guantanamo Bay. Several US service members were injured during the search for him, and the prisoner exchange became a major political controversy in the United States.
Bergdahl pleaded guilty to desertion and misbehaviour before the enemy in 2017. His lawyer, Eugene Fidell, said Bergdahl was disappointed by the appeals court’s decision and was considering whether to seek a rehearing, review by the full appeals court or consideration by the US Supreme Court.
