A Sourcebook for Legislators & Journalists

6/24/2021

The National Institute of Military Justice, in cooperation with CAAFlog and Global Military Justice Reform, today released the Military Justice Reform Sourcebook for Legislators and Journalists (June 2021).

4 Comments

Jason Grover

6/24/2021 11:10:24 am

Great resource! Thanks to the team that produced this!

Brian L. Cox link

6/24/2021 02:24:11 pm

Excellent resource - job well done to those involved.

In the interest of presenting a balanced perspective, if a group of us get together and compile a collection of opinion pieces, official reports, and the like indicating that the change is unnecessary and potentially counterproductive, will the CAAFlog team post that on the site as well?

Brenner M. Fissell

6/24/2021 10:07:46 pm

Yes

Tami a/k/a Princess Leia

6/25/2021 07:49:28 pm

There should also be a compendium of acquittals in "sexual assault" cases--facts, issues litigated, judge alone/panel, etc. There are no studies I am aware of that separate intentionally false accusations from those made in good faith, but based on an incorrect understanding of the law (usually from SHARP training).

IMHO, there will never be meaningful military justice "reform" so long as the benchmark is more prosecutions and more convictions. This simply encourages false reporting, and in fact, has the opposite effect. Those who use common sense and logic in their deliberations tend to acquit, not convict. The presumption of innocence means that the starting point for evaluating a case is presuming sexual conduct is consensual between competent people.

There needs to be an effort to discourage intentionally false accusations, as well as an effort to educate a correct understanding of law. Someone who repeats the rote "only" 2-5% of accusations are false is saying they accept a rate of false accusations. There should be zero tolerance for false accusations, period.

Shifting responsibility to "experienced, trained attorneys" will not improve military justice, in my opinion, because as long as Congressional representatives use the military justice system to politicize it.

I predict that if this effort to "improve" justice becomes law, in less than a decade, Congressional representatives will be complaining about the lack of "progress" to "eradicate" sexual assault in the military.

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A Sourcebook for Legislators & Journalists

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