The Supreme Court And Military Justice

In the criminal law system, some basic objectives are to discover the truth, acquit the innocent without unnecessary delay or expense, punish the guilty proportionately with their crimes, and prevent and deter further crime, thereby providing for the public order. Military justice shares these objectives in part, but also serves to enhance discipline throughout the Armed Forces, serving the overall objective of providing an effective national defense. Contents of this report: Intro.; Military Courts-Martial: Jurisdiction; Types of Offenses; Investigation; Types of Courts-Martial: Summary Courts-Martial; Special Courts-Martial; General Courts-Martial; Post-Trial Review; Appellate Review; Selected Procedural Safeguards. Illus. This is a print on demand report.

This book addresses the body of statutory and case law covering both the military and military conduct. Four chapters discuss the relationship between the Supreme Court and military justice, covering the Civil War era, World War II, the post-war period from 1956 to 1987, and developments since the September 11, 2001, attacks. Each chapter also includes a set of documents that shed light on these periods of U.S. history. Excerpts from key Supreme Court briefs and rulings are complemented by articles from the Army Times, the Armed Forces Journal, and mass media including the New York Times and The Nation. Incisive introductions to these documents explain the evolution of constitutional law and the ways in which federal and state statutes have lessened the effectiveness of both civilian control over the military and civilian judicial oversight.

This book presents an accessible and honest assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of military justice around the world, with particular emphasis on the US, UK, and Canada.

The United States military court system has been praised by Supreme Court Justice Warren Burger as "the most enlightened military code in history." Predating the Constitution, the military court system deals with disciplining and punishing members of the military. Inquisitive readers will enjoy learning about the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the three types of courts martial. Dramatic summaries of historic courts martial, including those of Benedict Arnold and Billy Mitchell, demonstrate how military justice is carried out.

The interaction between military and civilian courts, the political power that legal prerogatives can provide to the armed forces, and the difficult process civilian politicians face in reforming military justice remain glaringly under-examined, despite their implications for the quality and survival of democracy. This book breaks new ground by providing a theoretically rich, global examination of the operation and reform of military courts in democratic countries. Drawing on a newly created dataset of 120 countries over more than two centuries, it presents the first comprehensive picture of the evolution of military justice across states and over time. Combined with qualitative historical case studies of Colombia, Portugal, Indonesia, Fiji, Brazil, Pakistan, and the United States, the book presents a new framework for understanding how civilian actors are able to gain or lose legal control of the armed forces. The book’s findings have important lessons for scholars and policymakers working in the fields of democracy, civil-military relations, human rights, and the rule of law.

The Al-Qaeda terror attacks of September 11, 2001, aroused a number of extraordinary counter measures in response, including an executive order authorizing the creation of military tribunals or “commissions” for the trial of accused terrorists. The Supreme Court has weighed in on the topic with some controversial and deeply divided decisions, most recently Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. At this critical moment in time, Extraordinary Justice seeks to fill an important gap in our understanding of what military tribunals are, how they function, and how successful they are in administering justice by placing them in comparative and historical context. Peter Judson Richards examines tribunals in four modern conflicts: the American Civil War, the British experience in the Boer War, the French tribunals of the “Great War,” and Allied practices during the Second World War. Richards also examines the larger context of specific political, legal and military concerns, addressing scholarly and policy debates that continually arise in connection with the implementation of these extraordinary measures. He concludes that while the record of the national tribunals has been mixed, enduring elements in the character of warfare, of justice, and the nature of political reality together justify their continued use in certain situations.