Editorial: Military sex-assault case shows need for far-reaching reforms
The Boston Globe Editorial Board writes:
Two weeks ago, the Senate blocked legislation championed by Kirsten Gillibrand to overhaul the broken process of rooting out sexual assault in the military. The New York Democrat’s bill would have taken away commanding officers’ power to decide when to prosecute, entrusting that authority instead to neutral military lawyers outside the chain of command. Gillibrand won a bipartisan 55-45 majority but was short of the 60 votes needed to avoid a filibuster. The Senate then unanimously passed a bill sponsored by Missouri’s Claire McCaskill that made some good reforms — most notably in eliminating the “good soldier defense,” in which defendants invoke exemplary service records to suggest they could not have possibly committed sexual assault. But the Senate bill still leaves commanding officers with too much influence over these cases. The House should do better.
