About that HASC hearing

Patricia Kime reports here on the recent military justice hearing before the military personnel subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee. Three comments come to mind. First, in response to the GOP ranking member's plea that the changes that went into effect on January 1, 2019 should be given a chance to work before making further changes in the Uniform Code of Military Justice, those changes do nothing to remedy the excessive "own and operate" role played by commanders. Second, data about whether sex-offense cases are up or down are neither the beginning nor the end of the conversation: while sex offenses are what has driven much of the current concern about our antiquated George III command-centric system, the vice in that system is structural and applies to the disposition of all offenses other than minor disciplinary matters. (And did we mention jury selection?) Third, one of the Judge Advocates General cited the June 2014 report of the Response Systems to Adult Sexual Assault Crimes Panel, but paid insufficient attention to the powerful dissent filed with that report by Air Force veteran and legal scholar Elizabeth L. Hillman and former civilian prosecutor Harvey Bryant. It's at pp. 173-75 and repays reading. Their conclusion:

Requiring commanders to exercise prosecutorial discretion and perform judicial functions hinders their ability to respond vigorously and fairly to sexual assault. It also exacerbates the negative impact of inevitable failures of commanders to fairly and objectively act as prosecutors and judges. It rejects the independent prosecutors on whom every other criminal justice system—U.S. state and federal criminal courts, our allies’ military courts, and international criminal courts—relies. As a result, the U.S. military justice system will continue to operate outside the constraints of 21st-century norms for fairness and transparency in criminal justice. We dissent.