SARGE comments on the IRC

The Shadow Advisory Report Group of Experts (SARGE), has released a statement on the DoD Independent Review Committee (IRC) report from last Friday.

SARGE focuses on the Accountability section of the IRC report. In the BLUF, SARGE suggests that,
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Hard Truths does not purport to address the broader changes Congress is currently considering. As a result, it should not be read as having rejected those changes. Congress should proceed with consideration of legislation transferring disposition authority over all offenses for which the maximum punishment exceeds a year’s confinement to judge advocates who are independent of the chain of command[.]

SARGE goes on to say, correctly, that,

Additionally, if, as the report observes (App. B at 6), “junior enlisted Service members hav[e
a] general distrust of their enlisted leaders and commanders” and there is “an overall distrust in a
commander-centric military justice process” (emphases added), the clear implication is that those phenomena are not confined to sex offenses. The accountability line of effort was charged with, among other things, “assess[ing] the feasibility, opportunities, and risks from changes to the commander’s role in military justice,” but Appendix B to Hard Choices does not examine a variety of alternatives for reforming the prosecution function, App. B at 20, and to its credit, the
accountability team disavowed any opinion regarding matters unrelated to sexual assault, sexual harassment, and related crimes. Id. at 8. The result is that, like the September 2, 2020 Joint Service Subcommittee Prosecutorial Authority Study, this part of the IRC report will be of little assistance to Congress.
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Should any changes to military justice practice be limited to the IRC recommendations, we will have a "ununiform" bifurcated system of military justice. This will further add to the already complex and confusing investigative and accountability process.  There will become two major classes of victims: the classes identified by the IRC (Chart, Appendix B, at 10), and other victims who will remain within the commander-centric system--the mother of a murdered Sailor, the Soldiers who are victims of a barrack's thief, the Airman suffering abusive (toxic) leadership on the flight line; or the taxpayer whose money is taken in allowances fraud or military property theft.

An actual or perceived unequal justice system is unlikely to be helpful to good order and discipline. The recommendations may, if enacted or implemented alone, have a perverse effect on ensuring trust in the system and in creating and supporting necessary cultural change. No one doubts the need to address acts and words of sexual aggression--Senator Gillibrand's bill is the much better, if not complete, approach Congress should follow.

Cheers, Phil Cave