The draft bills were presented to the committee on Nov. 17. The bulk of the bills address discrepancies between the Wisconsin Code of Military Justice (WCMJ) used by the Wisconsin National Guard and the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) which is used by all national uniformed military branches, some of which have made it more difficult for sexual assault victims to receive justice under Wisconsin’s code.
For example, under the Wisconsin code, “wrongful sexual contact” is not an offense unto itself, and would need to be coupled with another charge for prosecution. The national, uniform code used to be the same but was updated in 2017. Several of the draft bills would update Wisconsin’s military code to bring it into alignment with the national code.
Other bills would require the Department of Military Affairs to inform the Legislature about substantial changes to the national military criminal codes, so the Legislature could make updates to Wisconsin code as needed; prohibit certain behaviors from officials in positions of power over trainees and recruits; update legislation on retaliation for reporting sexual assault and sexual harassment; lay out pre-trial, trial, and post-trial procedures, and more.
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