Killing the lawyers

SECDEF

Lesley Wexler and Anthony Ghiotto have writted a Justia post titled Let's Kill All the Lawyers: The Friday Night Massacre of Judge Advocates General. Excerpt:

This potential chilling effect is likely to extend well below the TJAG level. Judge advocates advise at all levels of command. And TJAGs exercise statutory control and responsibility over all judge advocates within their departments. Such responsibility includes the authority to deploy and reassign subordinate judge advocates. Suppose one of the new TJAGs is a Trump administration loyalist who refuses to establish any roadblocks to the administration’s use of the military. A junior judge advocate may identify a potentially unlawful order that flows down to a junior commander. The junior judge advocate may be up for promotion, may not be eligible for retirement, may be assigned to a location where their spouse may be able to work or where her child may be able to receive special services. This junior judge advocate may fear that if she gives independent legal advice that runs afoul of their TJAG, she could be punished with a new assignment, a deployment, or other adverse career consequences. Of course, the fear of retaliation will not deter all junior judge advocates. Think of Lieutenant Alaric Piette, a Navy JAG Corps defense attorney, who repeatedly objected to irregular military commission proceedings on behalf of his death penalty eligible client. Piette knew such actions were deeply unpopular not only with the presiding Judge Vance Spath, but with many in the military as well. Many suspect his superiors failed to promote him as a result—a stiff penalty in an up or out system. Such courage should not be taken as inevitable, particularly in a setting likely to be much more punitive than even the one Piette faced.