"ArtKramr" wrote in message
...
Many experts in military law consider the term military justice a
contradiction
in terms. For example, you are charged with a crime by the military. The
judge
is military, The prosecuting attourney is military, your defense attourney
is
military and the entire jury is military. There is no representation that
is in
any way neutral or objective. And we know the the military follows the
orders
of superior officers. Where is the justice?

Huh? Military defendants can indeed secure civilian representation if they
so desire. And since the defendant is *also* military, the process is one
conducted by his peers in the truest sense of the word. Command influence in
the courts martial process, once it gets to that point, is not allowed (but
indeed may pop up, or that accusation may occur), but then again politics
has been known to influence the justice process in the civil world. There is
an appeals process that does indeed sometimes result in the reversal of
convictions (i.e., an airman had his conviction overturned because polygraph
information was improperly used in his trial). Many courts martials result
in the defendant being exhonerated (in 1997, the US Army had 40 acquittals
out of 741 general courts martials, and 46 acquittals out of 315 special
courts martials, for a conviction rate of about 92%--see
http://www.armfor.uscourts.gov/annua...7ArmyStats.pdf ); civilian
courts at the state level had about an 88% conviction rate in 1996
(http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/psc96.pdf ), so your view that the
military process is somehow terribly "unjust" does not seem to stand up to
facts.

Brooks


Now lets extend that to civilian
life. You have an
argument with a neighbor and he takes you to court. When you get to court
you
find the judge is your neighbors cousin. The prosecuting attourney is one
of
the neighbors sons and his other son is your defense attourney. The
entire
jury consists of his family. Now you have an exmple of miliitary justice
which
all too often is no justice at all.


Arthur Kramer