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| Member |
Not irrelevant, waiting in the wings. It appears the prosecution has all it needs to prove an Article 134 adultery charge. It may be their plan "B". | |||
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| Member |
if things are all he loses, he can get more things Safety, Situational Awareness and proficiency. Neck Ties, Hats and ammo brass, Never ,ever touch'em w/o asking first | |||
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Tinker Sailor Soldier Pie |
Sounds like he's losing a heck of lot more than just things. ~Alan Acta Non Verba NRA Life Member (Patron) God, Family, Guns, Country Men will fight and die to protect women... because women protect everything else. ~Andrew Klavan | |||
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| Member |
In the current military climate, it's safe to say he is done, even if completely exhorted of all charges. With the nude pics of military females and sexual assaults on the rise, the military needs to show they will not tolerate anything that jeopardizes "good order and discipline". | |||
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| Crusty old curmudgeon  |
If I was a friend of his, I'd worry about him taking his own life rather than facing the huge loss and what he has done to his family. It sure wouldn't be the first time. I'm not saying you should get involved Chongo, but you may suffer from a loss like that if you don't try to help out. I say this from experience. Jim ________________________ "If you can't be a good example, then you'll have to be a horrible warning" -Catherine Aird | |||
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Armed and Gregarious |
No jeopardy has attached. Theoretically they could attempt to charge other substantive acts as adultery, but unless his "confession" specified other dates of consensual sex, that would be very difficult. Also, if the Commander wanted to ensure a conviction, and they had that evidence, they could have included those same substantive acts for this prosecution. It's unlikely the Commander would/could charge 134 Adultery if the accused is acquitted of all charges at this trial. ___________________________________________ "He was never hindered by any dogma, except the Constitution." - Ty Ross speaking of his grandfather General Barry Goldwater "War is the remedy that our enemies have chosen, and I say let us give them all they want." - William Tecumseh Sherman | |||
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| Armed and Gregarious |
Your plan B comment is a bit odd considering this statement from you earlier. ___________________________________________ "He was never hindered by any dogma, except the Constitution." - Ty Ross speaking of his grandfather General Barry Goldwater "War is the remedy that our enemies have chosen, and I say let us give them all they want." - William Tecumseh Sherman | |||
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fugitive from reality |
I found this a little odd as well. Adultery is usually the first think they charge you with because it's the easiest to prove. I'm not going to go into the nuts and bolts of the A134 subsections, but outside of murder rape is one of the most serious crimes under UCMJ. Rape in a war zone carries the potential for the death penalty. _____________________________ 'I'm pretty fly for a white guy'. | |||
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| Member |
The problem with the news coverage, if indeed it is for the case actually being discussed here, is that it is "dumbed down" for a civilian audience. They tend to describe the UCMJ charges (if they even know them) in civil law terms that are closest so that the civilian can put them in context. As DMF pointed out, UCMJ charges are pretty specific and the there will be certain specifications under each general offense that the defendant is charged with and the prosecution will have to prove. There are very likely several lesser included offenses, and if I remember correctly he could be found guilty of violating the general offense (134) of basically bringing discredit to the armed forces and or prejudicial to good order and discipline even if not found guilty of kidnapping or the rape. That is where he is most vulnerable I would think, as this high profile case has definitely put the Navy in a poor light in the media and public eye. A conviction for a lesser included offense in the General Article would likely lead to a Bad Conduct Discharge or Other than Honorable Discharge but not necessarily jail time. A loss of benefits and fines could also be "awarded". So although things look bleak, hopefully your friend has hired a good attorney, and maybe avoid extended jail time, assuming his side of the story is the truth. Patching things up with friends and family is a whole other issue, I wish you both well. | |||
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| Member |
My views are developing as I read more about the case. In this day and age, the court of public opinion has bled over into the military. If he does in fact beat all the charges then the headline will be "Accused rapist set free" instead of what should be "Innocent man exonerated". | |||
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| Ignored facts still exist |
That unaware civilian citizen would be me.  I'm still trying to wrap my head around what's different. Are the rights of the accused different or something? are the rules not "beyond a shadow of a doubt" to declare guilt? Are the sentences normally harsher? Sorry to be so lame, I know nothing about the military. Maybe I should start with wikipedia. In any case, I can relate to friendship. The OP and the accused have quite a wonderful history growing up together, and I hope the OP is able to keep in touch with his friend through all of this. A friendship that starts in the teen years and carries through to mid-life (and beyond) is rare, worth keeping and . | |||
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| Member |
Start here. Penalties are severe. Example; Rape is punishable by up to, and including, the death penalty. The military hasn't executed anyone since the early 1960's. | |||
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Member |
This is a list of the different discharges and examples of some of the charges leading up to them. http://themilitarywallet.com/t...military-discharges/ | |||
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I Wanna Missile |
No words for your friend. He made his choices. My advice to YOU: You will be swearing an oath before friends, family and the gods... but most importantly before yourself. Be true to yourself and all else will follow as it should.
The most important thing in teh military justice system is that HOW an offense is prosecuted is as important as WHAT the offense was. Disobeying the lawful order of a commissioned officer can be anything from a traffic infraction to a capital felony depending on whether it is referred as a non-judicial punishment (Article 15, Captain's Mast, Office Hours, etc) or a General Court Martial. It is theoretically possible for a sexual assault to be the equivalent of a traffic ticket if it is referred under NJP. It is also possible for it to be a death penalty case. Same facts, same offense, just HOW the chain of command decided to convene the proceeding.
Very similar.
At NJP the rule is "more likely than not" similar to the "preponderance of the evidence" in a civil trial. The others are beyond a reasonable doubt.
The theoretically possible sentences in military crimes are often MUCH more harsh than their civilian counterparts. However rarely if ever are they imposed. "I am a Soldier. I fight where I'm told and I win where I fight." GEN George S. Patton, Jr. | |||
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| Son of a son of a Sailor  |
As a retired Chief, this thread is difficult to read. I know things happen on deployments and TDY, and the truth in this case may be lurking beyond what we are reading. Regardless, I hate to see a career end in such a manner. -------------------------------------------- Floridian by birth, Seminole by the grace of God | |||
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blame canada |
Agreed. This is my specialty, suicide watch is more than warranted. His family also. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "The trouble with our Liberal friends...is not that they're ignorant, it's just that they know so much that isn't so." Ronald Reagan, 1964 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Arguing with some people is like playing chess with a pigeon. It doesn't matter how good I am at chess, the pigeon will just take a shit on the board, strut around knocking over all the pieces and act like it won.. and in some cases it will insult you at the same time." DevlDogs55, 2014  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ www.rikrlandvs.com | |||
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| Member |
I would concur since his family would still receive benefits at this juncture. | |||
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| Not your average kind of girl  |
I am sorry Chongo.... If it won't matter in 5 years don't give it more than 5 minutes. | |||
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| Freethinker |
A soldier was sentenced to death for the rape and murder of another soldier’s wife in 1979. Unfortunately the sentence was overturned because the military prosecutor was unfamiliar with the case of Furman v. Georgia (1972) in which the Supreme Court struck down the then-pending death sentences and established new rules to be followed when seeking the death penalty. I was a new CID agent and knew of the case, but a Staff Judge Advocate captain wasn’t, and neither—evidently—were any of the lawyers in his chain of command who should have been monitoring one of the most serious cases of the time. “I can’t give you brains, but I can give you a diploma.” — The Wizard of Oz This life is a drill. It is only a drill. If it had been a real life, you would have been given instructions about where to go and what to do. | |||
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| Freethinker |
When I was a kid I asked an active duty Army friend of my father’s whether it was better to be tried by a civilian or military court for an offense. That was a very long time ago and I’m not sure his answer would still be correct, but he said, “For a minor offense, civilian court; for a serious offense, military court.” Military juries are made up of officers with sometimes noncommissioned officers as a small part if the defendant is an enlisted member. In general, therefore, the jury is much less likely to include exceptionally stupid people, including those who are easily swayed by emotional or other irrational arguments. That can be good or bad for the defendant. I strongly doubt, for example, that O.J. Simpson would have been acquitted by a military jury. Although I’ve had no interaction with the Uniform Code of Military Justice for many years, at one time military personnel had pretty much as many protections as civilians; I suspect that that’s no less true now, if anything. There were/are exceptions that permitted punishments under certain conditions without recourse to being tried by court martial, but they were fairly limited. Pretrial determinations of whether a case should go to trial were conducted by an Article 32 officer rather than being presented to a Grand Jury by a prosecutor, but that wasn’t always to the detriment of a defendant; just the opposite, in fact, in many cases. Unlike civilian rules that permit questioning a suspect without a rights advisement if the person is not in custody, military investigators are required to give the advisement if a military member is just suspected of a crime, and it makes no difference if he has been apprehended (military for “arrested”) or what the circumstances of the questioning are. Military personnel are always appointed military attorneys, and their defense costs them nothing unless they decide to hire a civilian attorney (SJA lawyers referred to the payments military defendants made to civilian attorneys as “extra [monetary] forfeitures,” though). There are, of course, good military lawyers and bad military lawyers. I saw plenty of both in action. The senior commander court martial “convening authority” is permitted to reduce sentences imposed by a military judge or jury, and they often do. That happened in an attempted murder case I was involved in because the commander didn’t understand what a military sentence to confinement usually meant in terms of actual time served. Military personnel can’t refuse to report to the criminal investigation office if they don’t feel like talking, and someone who isn’t a suspect has no right to decline to answer questions. If they lie they can be prosecuted themselves—and often are. I will state too, that during my 10 years as an Army CID agent, our investigative standards were as high as any other agency’s, and much higher than the vast majority of law enforcement agencies’. Not every investigation was conducted perfectly and not all CID agents were paragons of judicial virtue, but a defendant could almost always depend upon receiving a professional, complete, and fair investigation of the allegations against him. Whether that was good or bad for him depended on the circumstances. As a last comment, the standard of proof required for conviction of a crime in both civilian courts and courts martial is evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, not a “shadow” of a doubt, whatever that might be. I once heard a civilian attorney try to change that standard in his argument to the military jury, but the SJA prosecutor did a good job of making sure that the jury understood what the real requirement was. “I can’t give you brains, but I can give you a diploma.” — The Wizard of Oz This life is a drill. It is only a drill. If it had been a real life, you would have been given instructions about where to go and what to do. | |||
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