I agree, I think the Senator is only trying to legitimize this foul system they have cooked up. My case was decidedly weak in the eyes of the Art 32 Judge, but they decided to pursue with the General Courts Martial. I even had the judge of my courts martial helping the defense in some bizarre twist. Then I was convicted, but not unanimously. Appeals…. a joke. 24 years down the drain on a hearsay case. I never thought it would see the light of a court room, but I still remember walking into the Area Defense Council (ADC) office and the paralegal telling me, “ALL sexual assault cases see their day in court, no matter what”. Modern day witch trials and good ole’ Senator Gilbrand will be sure to keep the convictions coming.

@Jeremy

Just a clarification – The type of court martial and the charge(s) will determine the number of panel (not jury) members. A capital murder charge will have a full panel and a unanimous conviction requirement. Other charges can have less panel members down to five (5) overall with only 75% required to vote to convict (by law of today). However, your point of “beyond a reasonable doubt” not existing in the military legal system is spot on. IT DOES NOT EXIST. This is because “good order and discipline” need to be maintained in the minds of those who are in charge of the military (in uniform and in suits).

The problem is that many times command doesn’t charge the accused as the senator stated. This doesn’t seem to alleviate that problem. The bigger problem is false convictions though.

This bill only appears to change the recommendation of charges. That does nothing for false convictions as the writer appears to be claiming. If he didn’t do the crime and still got convicted, which happens a lot in military court, it has less to do with referring charges and more to do with the trial itself.

Let me explain how a criminal jury works in the military. The concept of “beyond a shadow of a doubt” doesn’t exist. A military jury is normally just 5 people and it’s a majority rule system, so if 3 say guilty, you’re guilty. There’s no such thing as a hung jury because it’s always an odd number. Furthermore, your “peers” are service members with high rank and status regardless of the accused rank. A private will have a jury of master sergeants and colonels. This system is not representative of American due process. This is what needs to be addressed and changed.

Real change is when the Article 32 hearing was made by law to be recorded with copies given to the defense because it brought the military system more in line with the civilian legal system when previously it was not. Before then, too much power was given to individuals to say whether they could be or not and whether they needed to be given to the defense.

I, too, had an Article 32 Investigating Officer say they case would be she said/he said and should not be pursued, but the powers to be above them decided to go forth with it anyway because they were under pressure from Congress and this particular Sen to do more. The particular individual who made the call ended up lying in the docs they wrote to justify this move and since made it in the upper echelons of the service before being stopped because they denied a service member what they are required to have.

Those civilians who will be in charge of this and those who are at rank who will be part of this will continue to do what they think is right and then be brought on the carpet to ask why they went a certain way if it is not in line with what this Sen and others will want to happen. They will never accept anything less than 100% charged and convicted. Because of the way the military is under civilian control, they will always get to be jerked around by those who have never served but think they know best. There will be those who have served who think they will know best as well but will in the end follow the votes/money because they too enjoy the perks of being an elected official more than the values that got them elected. People have always ascended on the backs of others and the military is no different whether in the legal environment or otherwise across the services. It will be more of the same going forward and wrongly impact those it should not be. “Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely”

While the onus for Article 120 prosecutions is needed and the effort to root it out of the military is also needed, until the system is truly just and balanced for both parties in the adversarial legal system, it will continue to be lopsided to those who hold the purse strings of those who are implementing it.

Thank you NARSOL for the space to share my dissent. I will need to look into the NDAA now for more misgivings in the military legal machine.

…Legal Decisions must be made outside the chain of command; however, I am sure that commanding officers will put pressure on the ‘neutral ones’….

at least this is a step forward as opposed to a step backward…..at least there is more transparency……or the appearance of transparency…..

Military Tribunals’ intentions are more fact based than drama based…..

Kudos to Mr Sam…..

thanks