Military Justice Improvement Act

As you may be aware, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) proposed legislation to move the prosecution of an alleged military sexual assault offender from the standard chain of command to an external military judicial chain of command.  Toward the end of last week, word was getting around  Military Justice Improvement Act was finally going to come to the Senate floor for a vote this week and that Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) indicated her intention to filibuster when it does.  That would mean Sen. Gillibrand would need 60 votes, instead of the simple majority, to get the bill passed.  Sen. Gillibrand has been stating that she has 54 votes.  Her office has been claiming that 10 senators are undecided so Sen. Gillibrand and advocacy groups have been lobbying hard for their votes.

Unfortunately for the Gillibrand bill, the "Role of the Commander" subcommittee of the Congressionally-appointed Response Systems to Adult Sexual Crimes Panel wrapped up their work two weeks ago and submitted their assessment that "the authority vested in senior commanders to convene courts-martial under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) for sexual assault offenses should not be changed."  The memorandum (Initial Assessment of Whether Senior Commanders Should Retain Authority to Refer Cases of Sexual Assault to Courts-Martial) submitted by the subcommittee to members of the Panel indicated they had not found evidence to support that removal of senior commanders from the prosecution process would:

     -  Reduce the incidence of sexual assault in the military;
     -  Increase reporting of sexual assaults;
     -  Improve the quality of the investigation and prosecutions; or
     -  Increase conviction rate of those accused.

The impact of this assessment on Sen. Gillibrand's bill will not be known until the vote.  The Senate did not debate this bill today.  Tomorrow is forecast as a major snow event so it is unlikely government will be operating.  If the bill is not considered on Friday, it will sit for yet another week while Congress takes a recess.

I attended the meeting of the Response Systems Panel on January 30, 2014 and took advantage of a Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) requirement to allow public comment.  You can watch the entire hearing at http://www.c-span.org/video/?317502-1/dod-sexual-assault-crimes-response-panel or just my five minutes at http://www.c-span.org/video/?c4483188

Over the next few days I plan to post several additional commentaries about Sen. Gillibrand's proposal. I will attempt to explain some of the background to the problem of military sexual assault and to share some of what I have learned over the past six months.  I hope you will find it as enlightening as I have.