Rocky Point soldier to leave prison a year early

One year ago, a court martial panel at Fort Bragg, N.C., convicted a decorated Army soldier from Rocky Point of choking to death a fellow soldier. He was sentenced to serve a 2-year term at an Army base in Oklahoma.

Late Wednesday, the parents of Justin Boyle, 29, got word that their soldier son had been granted partial clemency and would be released from prison Oct. 28, a year ahead of schedule.

"When Justin called last night, my husband had to repeat it three times because I guess Justin didn't believe it," said Boyle's mother, Fran Boyle. "He was so relieved. He sounded happy for the first time in almost a year."

At Boyle's court martial, which ended in October, his attorney argued that Boyle had only tried to restrain the other soldier, Pfc. Luke Brown, 27, of Fredericksburg, Va., and had been acting in accordance with warnings from superiors to never leave a fellow soldier in harm's way.

The July 2008 incident occurred at closing time outside a Fayetteville, N.C., bar near Fort Bragg. Brown, whose autopsy showed he was extremely intoxicated, refused to return to the military installation and ran off into a woodland.

When Brown began fighting with several of his colleagues who tried to corral him, Boyle subdued him with a choke hold, loaded him in a car and escorted him back to Fort Bragg, according to testimony at his trial. Brown was dead when he arrived at the fort 15 minutes later.

Boyle, whose four combat tours took him to Iraq and Afghanistan, and whose personnel evaluations consistently rated him as a top soldier, was sentenced to 2 years in prison at Fort Sill.

He is appealing his conviction, which if allowed to stand will result in a bad-conduct discharge from the Army when he leaves prison next month.

On Wednesday, Maj. Gen. David D. Halverson, the commanding general at Fort Sill, Okla., granted Boyle's clemency request in part because of the wishes of the victim's family, according to Fort Sill spokeswoman Nancy Elliott.

"Boyle has been a model inmate since his arrival to Fort Sill," Elliott told Newsday in an e-mail message.

A March 7 article in Newsday raised questions concerning how the case was handled. The military pathologist initially ruled the cause of death as inconclusive. When an Army prosecutor challenged her conclusion months later, she changed her ruling to "homicide," according to court martial testimony.

The Newsday story resulted in an outpouring of support for Boyle. More than 250 current and former Suffolk County police officers signed a letter addressed to local members of Congress, calling for Boyle's exoneration. "As Police Officers and Veterans, we have all witnessed similar incidents involving accidental in-custody deaths; however, we have not witnessed an innocent man held responsible," the letter read in part.

Fran Boyle said she was elated that her son will be released. "I am extremely excited," Boyle said. "We've had disappointments so many times in the past, I didn't want to get my hopes up. But I have to be thankful that he will be released."