NBC News and news services
updated 9/2/2010 8:30:59 PM ET 2010-09-03T00:30:59





The Greeley, Colo., native did not report to Fort Campbell, Ky., in April to prepare for deployment.



If convicted, Lakin faces up to 45 months of confinement, total forfeiture of pay and allowances, and dismissal from the Army.

In a brief statement after Thursday's hearing, Lakin's defense attorney said the ruling denied his client the ability to be defended.

The next pre-trial hearing will be Sept. 28 and the trial is set for Oct. 13-15.


Video: 'Birther' Army doc enters no plea

  1. Closed captioning of: 'Birther' Army doc enters no plea

    >>> speaking of the president, you've, of course, heard of the birther movement. the people in this country that do not believe the president is actually a legal resident. this hour an army doctor was arraigned in a military courtroom for refusing a deployment order because he does not believe the president of the united states is a citizen. jim miklaszewski is at the pentagon this morning. good morning.

    >> good morning, the arraignment south of the pentagon ended just a few minutes ago. it was expected lieutenant colonel lakin, an army surgent would enter a plea. he wanted to defer any plea until the actual court-martial now scheduled for october 13th . as you said, he refused to deploy to afghanistan, because he claims that because president obama , he says, has not presented america with a valid birth certificate, therefore he doesn't think that he's a natural born citizen as required by the constitution. and therefore, again, that any order given by president obama , such as an order to lieutenant colonel lakin to go to afghanistan would be considered illegal. so he refused to show up for that deployment. ended up at the pentagon where he had his pass and government computers confiscated. now he faces several charges, also dereliction of duty which could land him jail time. usually when you hear these kinds of things about people refusing to go on deployment for whatever reason, you think it's a made-up excuse just not to deploy this guy is apparently serious about this birthing movement. he's given up his career on behalf of the cause. there you go.

    >> behalf of the cause. that's a report that came out this week. some 16, 17% of americans in this country believe in the birther movement. any idea in terms of his appearance in the courtroom? did he say anything? did he look odd, anything?

    >> i wasn't there. i talked to kim snead, who works out of the bureau here and one of our producers in the washington bureau. she just said that he refused to enter the plea at the time and most of the action came from some of his supporters who were there in the courtroom.

    >> bizarre. bizarre. jim miklaszewski on


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