Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, for more than 7 years, I have spoken out against the broken military justice system that allows commanders to decide how sexual assaults and other criminal offenses are prosecuted under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Our servicemembers are stuck in a world where their fates rest within the chain of command, where bias is king and justice often a jester. Today, I stand here sick at heart that, once again, a rape conviction has been overturned because of the broken military justice system. In this instance, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces threw out Airman Rodney Boyce's rape and assault conviction because of the involvement of Lieutenant General Craig Franklin, who referred the case to court-martial. This all came about because, in 2013, General Franklin was admonished by his superiors for tossing out the aggravated sexual assault conviction of a fellow F-16 pilot, a unanimous decision by a jury of his peers. Certainly, a general should not have the power to overturn the findings of a court of law simply because he thinks his buddy could not possibly have committed the sexual assault. But because Franklin was appropriately admonished for this abuse of power, the U.S. Court of Appeals found that his subsequent decision to move forward with an entirely separate Boyce case constituted unlawful command influence.…”