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BREAKING: AP: 90-Day Commission to Recommend Removing Commander Disposition Authority Over Sexual Assault Cases

4/22/2021

3 Comments

 
"The review panel said that for certain special victims crimes, designated independent judge advocates reporting to a civilian-led office of the Chief Special Victim Prosecutor should decide two key legal questions: whether to charge someone and, ultimately, if that charge should go to a court martial, the officials said. The crimes would include sexual assault, sexual harassment and, potentially, certain hate crimes....The officials said other initial recommendations sent to Austin seek to professionalize the workforce involved in the cases, calling for a military justice career track for prosecutors, judges, investigators and victims’ advocates. They also recommended improvements in allowing victims to get protective orders, and said there should be a set timeline for the justice process."

Link here.

Here is a link to the "I am Vanessa Guillen Act." for potential comparison once a public copy of the IRC report becomes available. A guess, but we are not likely to see a FR notice for public comment initially, if at all.

Update from DoD PAO after FOIA request.

​The document referred to in the article is pre-decisional and not available for public release while deliberations continue. I can share the following, attributable to John Kirby, Pentagon Press Secretary:
 
We can confirm that Lynn Rosenthal, Director of the Independent Review Commission on Sexual Assault, delivered to Secretary Austin today an initial set of recommendations. These particular recommendations referred to the accountability line of effort. The Secretary will now review the recommendations and consult with service leaders. The Secretary has asked the services to provide their candid assessment and feedback of these initial recommendations by the end of May.
 
Cheers PC&BF
3 Comments
LonBear
4/23/2021 08:13:44 am

Recommendations make sense. They also recommended making MPOs easier to get, but they are already really easy to get. They’re generally issued basically on request with little evidence now. I only know Navy, maybe other services are different.

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Scott
4/23/2021 11:52:36 am

I had the same reaction when reading this regarding making MPOs easier to get.

As you say, it’s hard to imagine making it any easier. It’s essentially automatic following an accusation.

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Concerned Citizen
4/23/2021 02:26:34 pm

I am just curious as to what difference this is supposed to make. Everywhere I have ever been it's the JAG making the decision on this, even if the commander is putting his/her name on it.

Maybe it would make it easier to not prosecute the less meritorious cases that so often find their way into court. I recall being a trial counsel and wanting to not prosecute a 120 - I had to write a "no pros memo" and then essentially had a to try a court case to a panel consisting of : senior trial counsel, chief of justice, brigade judge advocate, special victims prosecutor, deputy SJA, SJA, company commander, battalion commander, brigade commander, and commanding general. I know every service does no pros memos and probably has a similar procedure.

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