Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Why is this case being tried by court-martial?

The Virginian-Pilot has this report on a U.S. Navy court-martial that seems to involve off-base sexual assault of family members (who may or may not be dependents--the story doesn't say) and lewd behavior with another child.

Why wasn't the case tried "downtown" by civilian authorities in the pertinent jurisdictions? If they all turned it down, does that make it a proper occasion for the exercise of military jurisdiction?

1 comment:

  1. It has been suggested to me that the presence of alleged offenses from several jurisdictions might have been a factor. See Solorio v. United States (NY and Alaska). I don't buy it because I don't think the military justice system should be the criminal equivalent of the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation.

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