The military’s top uniformed leaders will seek to temper calls for a drastic overhaul of the military justice system as Congress demands fast answers to the growing epidemic of sexual assaults within the armed forces.
Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the four-star officers atop each service are scheduled to testify today at a high-stakes Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on proposals that would trim the authority American military commanders have to discipline the forces they lead. Dempsey and other senior Pentagon officials have said they are open to legislative solutions to a problem they acknowledge is serious and that has outraged lawmakers from both parties on Capitol Hill.
But the military is deeply concerned that curbing too sharply a commander’s ability to decide how and when to punish or pardon service members will send a message there is lack of faith in the officer corps, and that in turn will undermine the efficiency and effectiveness of the military in peacetime and war, Dempsey warned in a recent letter to Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
“Because of the tremendous responsibility placed in commanders, they must also have broad authority to enforce discipline and execute their duties,” Dempsey wrote.
Paradoxically, the Defense Department’s failure so far to change the military’s male-dominated culture is driving a vocal group of lawmakers led by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., to advocate aggressive reforms.
Tinkering at the edges, they argue, won’t produce the seismic shift needed to send the message that sexist attitudes and behaviors will no longer be tolerated. Victims need to be confident that if they report a crime their allegations won’t be discounted and they won’t face retaliation.
The latest in a string of allegations came Friday.
The Pentagon said the U.S. Naval Academy is investigating allegations that three football players sexually assaulted a female midshipman at an off-campus house more than a year ago, and a lawyer for the woman says she was “ostracized” on campus after she reported it.
The Pentagon estimated in a report last month that up to 26,000 military members may have been sexually assaulted last year, up from an estimated 19,000 assaults in 2012, based on an anonymous survey of military personnel.
Those numbers and outrage over two recent decisions by Air Force generals overturning juries’ guilty verdicts in sexual assault cases are generating support for Gillibrand’s proposal to strip commanding officers of the power to toss out a verdict, a change initially recommended in April by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and backed by Dempsey, the service chiefs and many members of Congress.
But Gillibrand’s bill goes much farther. It would remove commanders from the process of deciding whether serious crimes, including sexual misconduct cases, go to trial. That judgment would rest with seasoned trial counsels who have prosecutorial experience and hold the rank of colonel or above.
Her legislation, which has 18 co-sponsors that include four Republicans, also would take away a commander’s authority to convene a court-martial. That responsibility would be given to new and separate offices outside the victim’s chain of command.
The House bill, however, stops short of taking those cases outside the chain of command, as Gillibrand’s bill proposes. Rep. Michael Turner, R-Ohio, who co-chairs the House Military Sexual Assault Prevention Caucus, said the focus should be on preventing sexual assaults, not scrapping central elements of the current military justice system.
About the Author
