A bold proposal--DOA?
Together, the 2013 and 2016 changes to the UCMJ created new barriers
to obtaining relief for military servicemembers who were harmed by legal
errors in their prosecutions. The proposed revision to the UCMJ facilitates
the fundamental goal of the military justice system: to provide efficient and
effective procedures while promoting justice and maintaining good order
and discipline. Without such a reform, servicemembers will continue to
face a system that provides them fewer due process rights than civilian defendants yet prevents them from remedying the inevitable violations that result. Until the military justice system eliminates legal errors (a fanciful
proposition) or becomes fully civilianized (a result that may not be desirable), convening authorities must have the power to review courts-martial for
legal errors and provide proper remedies. [Footnote omitted.]
From
Restoring the Power of the Convening Authority to Adjust Sentences by
Jacob R. Weaver in the
Michigan Law Review
DOA. Besides, it totally misses the point, e.g., "While the overhaul of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) in 2016 promised significant reform, it ultimately failed to substantially reduce common legal errors." A lay Convening Authority is not the entity to "cure" "common legal errors." That is the ostensible function of the CCA's, and what is needed is restoring the CCA's to the role Congress envisioned for them in 1949-50, when drafting the UCMJ, and staffing them with judges (military or civilian) who are not beholden to a TJAG (or DTJAG) for future assignments or promotions.
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