New York Times Editorial: Broken Military Justice
The New York Times Editorial Board advocates for fundamental reform to the military justice system:
One crucial change would be to give independent, professionally trained military prosecutors, not commanders with built-in conflicts of interest, the power to decide which sexual assault and other serious cases to try. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democrat of New York, has offered promising legislation that would make this change, but it has been opposed by the military brass and by Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat and the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who favors less sweeping reform.
Ms. Gillibrand now plans to offer her bill has an amendment when the military spending bill reaches the floor for a vote.
Support for her approach is building. Far from stripping commanders of accountability, as some critics have suggested, removing prosecution decisions in sexual assault and other serious crimes from the chain of command would not undermine discipline or end commanders’ responsibility to set the proper climate.
