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Should we remove military chain of command from military sexual assault cases?

Should we remove military chain of command from military sexual assault cases?

  • Total voters
    29
apdst said:
Do you want your kid being judged by civilians who don't know jack**** about military justice judging your daughter, in a scenario where she finds herself forced to disobey an unlawful order on the battlefield? Or, do you want experienced, educated line officers making that call?
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We are talking about sexual assault, correct? My answer is absolutely I would want civilian authority adjudicating any and all instances of sexual assault involving my daughter and anybody else's daughter.

I repeat, the chain of command has failed and failed miserably.

On a wider question of civilian authority judging my or anyone else's daughters or sons, in certain caes, I'd have no problem with that either. In fact, those scenerios of a mix of civilian and military authority over both soldiers and civilians already exists ..

Military Versus Civilian Court Authority - Lawyers.com
excerpt

Military and Civilian Court Authority

Military courts have exclusive authority over purely military crimes. Civilian courts have no authority. Some examples of purely military crimes include:

Mutiny
Sedition
Failure to obey an order
Insubordinate conduct
Most crimes violate both civilian and military law. Examples include robbery, assault and murder. The issue becomes whether a military service member will be tried in civilian or military court.

Civilian court authority is usually based on the location of the crime. The crime must have occurred within the boundaries of the state. Military court authority is based on the status of the offender. If he's an active service member, the UCMJ applies no matter where the crime occurs.

If a crime violates both military and state civilian law, it may be tried by a military court, a civilian court or both. Usually the two systems will coordinate to decide where the service member should be prosecuted. A military member can't be tried for the same misconduct by both a military court and another federal court. He can be tried for the same misconduct by both a military court and a state court.
 
BlackAsCoal said:
When it comes to sexual assault, I fail to see the difference of how that is determined, rather by civilian or military authority. Most importantly, start from here .. military authority/chain of command has failed to solve the problem

"The military's sexual assault problem has reached epidemic levels. Some 26,000 service members were sexually assaulted in 2012, according to a report released this summer by the Department of Defense (DOD)—up from 19,000 in 2010. This week, the Senate will begin consideration of legislation to curb the crisis. But a battle has emerged over how to solve the problem."
The Fight Over How to Stop Military Sexual Assault, Explained | Mother Jones

Sexual assault is sexual assault whether in uniform or not.
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How do you keep haters off the jury? People who are biased ahainst our servicemen and can't wait to put a baby killer in jail?
 
apdst said:
It's a soldier's right to be judged by a jury of his peers. There's no way a civilian jury can meet that requirement.

It's untrue that more soldiers commit suicide than die on the battlefield.
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Why can't a civilian jury meet that requirement? Juries are triers of fact (discounting nullification) so it seems to me that any reasonably intelligent person civilian would be as qualified as any reasonably intelligent soldier to do that in a case involving soldiers.

Btw, "Jury of peers" doesn't exist in our Constitution. The 6th amendment simply says "impartial jury." "Jury of peers" goes back to the Magna Carta and at that time it meant to insure that nobles faced a jury of other nobles and not the king. These days we generally assume it to mean fellow citizens though citizenship as far as I know is not a requirement to act as a juror in some - or even many - states.

Certainly in cases where a servicemember is accused of a crime against a civilian the appropriate state court should hear the case. Military on military crime I'm not so sure about.
 
BlackAsCoal said:
We are talking about sexual assault, correct? My answer is absolutely I would want civilian authority adjudicating any and all instances of sexual assault involving my daughter and anybody else's daughter.

I repeat, the chain of command has failed and failed miserably.

On a wider question of civilian authority judging my or anyone else's daughters or sons, in certain caes, I'd have no problem with that either. In fact, those scenerios of a mix of civilian and military authority over both soldiers and civilians already exists ..

Military Versus Civilian Court Authority - Lawyers.com
excerpt

Military and Civilian Court Authority

Military courts have exclusive authority over purely military crimes. Civilian courts have no authority. Some examples of purely military crimes include:

Mutiny
Sedition
Failure to obey an order
Insubordinate conduct
Most crimes violate both civilian and military law. Examples include robbery, assault and murder. The issue becomes whether a military service member will be tried in civilian or military court.

Civilian court authority is usually based on the location of the crime. The crime must have occurred within the boundaries of the state. Military court authority is based on the status of the offender. If he's an active service member, the UCMJ applies no matter where the crime occurs.

If a crime violates both military and state civilian law, it may be tried by a military court, a civilian court or both. Usually the two systems will coordinate to decide where the service member should be prosecuted. A military member can't be tried for the same misconduct by both a military court and another federal court. He can be tried for the same misconduct by both a military court and a state court.
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What about someone's son? Screw them?

You can't try someone twice, for the same crime. That would be double jeopardy. Your willingness to throw a soldier's constitutional rights out thevwindow proves my point.
 
apdst said:
How do you keep haters off the jury? People who are biased ahainst our servicemen and can't wait to put a baby killer in jail?
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That's what lawyers and jury selection are for. It's a general problem with any jury and doesn't seem to me to be a good reason to only try servicemembers in military courts.
 
apdst said:
How do you keep haters off the jury? People who are biased ahainst our servicemen and can't wait to put a baby killer in jail?
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In the same way you try to keep racists, pedophiles, other such scum off civilian juries.
 
apdst said:
What about someone's son? Screw them?

You can't try someone twice, for the same crime. That would be double jeopardy. Your willingness to throw a soldier's constitutional rights out thevwindow proves my point.
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Someone's son should know that sexual assault is a crime and his or HER uniform does not make it legal.

Men and women are both perpetrators and victims of sexual assault in the military.
 
Gaius46 said:
Why can't a civilian jury meet that requirement? Juries are triers of fact (discounting nullification) so it seems to me that any reasonably intelligent person civilian would be as qualified as any reasonably intelligent soldier to do that in a case involving soldiers.

Btw, "Jury of peers" doesn't exist in our Constitution. The 6th amendment simply says "impartial jury." "Jury of peers" goes back to the Magna Carta and at that time it meant to insure that nobles faced a jury of other nobles and not the king. These days we generally assume it to mean fellow citizens though citizenship as far as I know is not a requirement to act as a juror in some - or even many - states.

Certainly in cases where a servicemember is accused of a crime against a civilian the appropriate state court should hear the case. Military on military crime I'm not so sure about.
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Number one, enlisted soldiers can't serve on a courts martial, so regular folks don't serve on juries.

Number three, it depends on where the crime took place.
 
BlackAsCoal said:
Someone's son should know that sexual assault is a crime and his or HER uniform does not make it legal.

Men and women are both perpetrators and victims of sexual assault in the military.
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There are a lot of soldiers that find out that sexual assault is a crime, so I don't know what you're so uptight about.
 
BlackAsCoal said:
In the same way you try to keep racists, pedophiles, other such scum off civilian juries.
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Right! And civilian juries have done an awesome job of that.
 
<disclaimer: I did not read the entire thread>

Having been a guy that had to deal with this from a leadership standpoint... I personally feel that the military chain of command involvement in a crime investigation that happens off post, in the US, and is covered by civilian law, is out of place in the 21st century. I have seen it first hand that this was the case. But, not always.

On post, in another country, aboard ship, etc... Then the UCMJ and the Chain of Command should (and are) the only ones involved.
 
If I recall correctly, enlisted people can serve on a Special Courts-Martial, I am not sure about General CM.
apdst said:
Number one, enlisted soldiers can't serve on a courts martial, so regular folks don't serve on juries.

Number three, it depends on where the crime took place.
Click to expand...
 
Gaius46 said:
That's what lawyers and jury selection are for. It's a general problem with any jury and doesn't seem to me to be a good reason to only try servicemembers in military courts.
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Someone who is itching to put a soldier in jail, is going to admit to that during the jury selection?
 
apdst said:
How do you keep haters off the jury? People who are biased ahainst our servicemen and can't wait to put a baby killer in jail?
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Oh for god's sake...

How do you keep women haters off the jury? Or any other person off the jury...
 
mak2 said:
If I recall correctly, enlisted people can serve on a Special Courts-Martial, I am not sure about General CM.
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The defendent can request that and at least one third of the jury has to be made up of enlisted men.
 
Redress said:
Oh for god's sake...

How do you keep women haters off the jury? Or any other person off the jury...
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IOW, you admit that it's highly possible that soldiers could recieve an unfair trial?
 
apdst said:
There are a lot of soldiers that find out that sexual assault is a crime, so I don't know what you're so uptight about.
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Who is uptight dude?

Is opinion scary to you?
 
BlackAsCoal said:
Who is uptight dude?

Is opinion scary to you?
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Frankly, yes...it is.

It appears you believe two things 1) all sexual assaults in the service are male on female and 2) every sexual assault is legit and the accused soldier is guilty.
 
apdst said:
Frankly, yes...it is.

It appears you believe two things 1) all sexual assaults in the service are male on female and 2) every sexual assault is legit and the accused soldier is guilty.
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Huh?

Someone's son should know that sexual assault is a crime and his or HER uniform does not make it legal.

Men and women are both perpetrators and victims of sexual assault in the military.

That was from me several posts ago.

and NO, I do not believe that every case of assault is legit, never stated it, never implied it.
 
BlackAsCoal said:
Huh?

Someone's son should know that sexual assault is a crime and his or HER uniform does not make it legal.

Men and women are both perpetrators and victims of sexual assault in the military.

That was from me several posts ago.

and NO, I do not believe that every case of assault is legit, never stated it, never implied it.
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False reports are up 35%, making 17% of sexual assault accusations bogus, after a 4% rise in sexual assault cases.

False reports outpace sex assaults in the military - Washington Times

Sounds like soneone's daughters need to learn that false reporting a crime, is a crime, too.

Looks to me that people are getting their panties in a knot for nothing.
 
apdst said:
Someone who is itching to put a soldier in jail, is going to admit to that during the jury selection?
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It's a problem with the jury system period. There isn't anything you can do about it other than try to weed out people who might be biased. Why should soldiers be treated differently?

fwiw, I don't know how I feel about military on military crime. I tend to think that should be handled strictly within the military and can be done fairly but I haven't made up my mind. I just find the argument that an impartial civilian jury cannot be empanelled to be non persuasive.
 
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apdst said:
IOW, you admit that it's highly possible that soldiers could recieve an unfair trial?
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No moreso than anyone else.

To the OP, there are definitely too many situations where an allegation is killed by the chain of command, rather than getting a full investigation. That should not be allowed. The only person who should have the authority to dismiss a case is a judge.
 
Paschendale said:
No moreso than anyone else.

To the OP, there are definitely too many situations where an allegation is killed by the chain of command, rather than getting a full investigation. That should not be allowed. The only person who should have the authority to dismiss a case is a judge.
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Do you have evidence of that?
 
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