Political Quotes

“There are situations where joint jurisdiction lies--the military has jurisdiction, the civilian community has jurisdiction. There have been cases where the civilian community went first. There were 49 cases in the Army where the civilian community decided not to prosecute on a sexual assault and the Army took it up and they got an 81-percent conviction rate. In the Marine Corps, 28 cases were turned down by the civilian community where the Marine base was and they went to court with a 57-percent conviction rate. In the Navy and in the Air Force, it is the same. We see a civilian jurisdiction saying no to the case and the military saying yes, we are going to go to court. And that is because there is a difference between what the civilian community is trying to accomplish and what the military community must be trying to accomplish; that is, to let the troops know there is certain conduct that is out of bounds, and if it is even close, you are going to pay a potential price. Having said that, please do not blame sexual assault problems in the military on a broken military justice system because it is not broken. The commanders are not telling the lawyers to take a hike. The cases the lawyers recommend to go to trial actually do go to trial. Juries in the military are not juries of one's peers. This is not a civilian system. Everybody who goes to trial as an enlisted man is judged by officers.…”