New Law Used in Murder Trial

An Air Force spouse accused of murdering her husband on a military base in Turkey went on trial in Los Angeles federal court Tuesday in the first use of a law designed to close a legal loophole.

Latasha Arnt, 24, of Moreno Valley is the first person to be tried under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, drafted to remedy a situation in which U.S. civilians accompanying military personnel abroad were often able to evade prosecution for serious crimes.

Armed forces personnel accused of committing crimes on foreign soil are subject to trial by military courts, but their dependants and U.S. civilian employees are not. Civilians can be tried by the countries in which the crimes occur, but often foreign courts decline to prosecute, according to U.S. military lawyers, especially when both the victim and the accused are Americans.

The Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, which became law four years ago, allows those civilians to be tried in U.S. federal courts for misdeeds abroad if the host country declines to prosecute.

That is what occurred in the case of Arnt, who was returned to her home state of California to face a second-degree murder charge in the stabbing death of her husband, Staff Sgt. Matthias A. Arnt III, a 24-year-old military police officer, during a fight in their home on Incirlik Air Base in Turkey on May 26, 2003.

Arnt, who had given birth to their only child four months earlier, told investigators she stabbed him through the heart with a steak knife after he hit her several times, choked her and was about to punch her face.

The confrontation allegedly occurred after the sergeant returned home drunk and boisterous after a party.

Defense attorneys plan to call an expert on battered woman’s syndrome to testify on Arnt’s behalf.

In his opening statement Tuesday, Assistant U.S. Atty. Alexander Bustamante charged that Arnt killed her husband not in self-defense but out of “jealousy, betrayal and anger” after discovering torrid love letters to him from another woman.

Bustamante also derided the defense claim that the 6-foot-4, 240-pound sergeant had beaten her beforehand. He said Arnt had “not a mark, not a scratch, not a bruise” on her body during a medical exam after her arrest.

Myrna Sun, a deputy federal public defender, told the jury Arnt “knew she was going to have to fight for her life and that’s what she did.”

Sun said the sergeant flew into a rage after Arnt told him she had had enough of his heavy drinking and philandering and planned to return to the United States with their newborn.

Sun said the sergeant told Arnt, “I’ll kill you before you take the baby. Say your prayers right now.”

Part of the exchange was overheard by the sergeant’s supervisor, whom Arnt had called during the confrontation. The telephone then went dead.

Several minutes later, Arnt called the Incirlik base law enforcement desk, saying she had just stabbed her husband.

Medics found Sgt. Arnt unconscious and lying in a pool of blood in the couple’s kitchen. The knife, its blade bent, lay nearby. The sergeant was pronounced dead at a base hospital a short time later.

If convicted of second-degree murder, Arnt could receive a maximum sentence of life in prison. Depending on the evidence presented, U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson could offer the jury the option of finding this to be a case of voluntary manslaughter, which has a maximum 10-year term, or involuntary manslaughter, which is punishable by up to six years.