Should Commanders have UCMJ authority in a garrison environment or should this authority be given to JAG alone?

The Military always gets first crack on your GI body, as it should be.

The thing is, when you are in trouble you go to your command, if you dont like what they are putting out you can tell them you want to go to a courts martial and settle it there

Sir,

A lot of soldiers have gone through various forms of Judicial and Non-Judicual punishment.

If you are having a problem with the process there is nothing you can do but fasten your seatbelt and hold on while investigation occurs.

Once the investigation completes they will present their results to your command/SJA who ultimately has the decision on how to proceed.

Your command, knows you and knows who you are, and they evaluate those factors before the push forward with a plan.

So you wouldn't want this out of their hands entirely because lawyers and judges don't know you from Adam and know the LAW. It's a tougher road to go without the first steps you are trying to bypass.

Just two pennies to think on.

Sir,
Commanders have UCMJ authority, period. This is to enable them to COMMAND. Nonjudicial punishment is utilized as a corrective tool, so that repercussions for behavioral problems can be kept local and serve to correct the issue without long-term criminal records. Judicial punishment is the military's equivalent of being charged criminally and tried. The punishment is then adjudicated as criminal record.

Sexual assault is criminal both inside and outside of the military. The Command will adjudicate punishment based off of both civilian and military law, after being advised by JAG counsel. Your OBC/BOLC courses on military justice should have taught you this.

Being that you cited facing a court martial. You will be receiving the same type of legal counsel (specialized from the UCMJ standpoint) that anyone on the civilian side would. Yes, we have separate, additional, rules to follow. It's because our career field requires it, we call it the UCMJ.

I don't know your situation and nothing I say is a comment directory related to it or personal opinions. I do believe this is a topic already under review in relation to sexual assaults only. The consideration for taking prosecution rights away from commanders when it comes to sexual assault cases is under review to determine if it will reduce the number or "under the rug" cases. I don't know the current status. As far as UCMJ in general. .. no, they should not loose the ability to punish soldiers. If Jag handled every case individually backlog would prevent timely justice. Not to mention they would not "know" the difference between a soldier who needs serious punishment and is a problem or the one who needs correction but not career ending punishment. Two soldiers can do the same thing but need different approaches to corrections depending on the situations. Commanders who know their soldiers will know the difference, JAG wont.

You sir should not be on social media whining about being charged with sexual assault as an active duty soldier claiming to be an officer. Just running your mouth here puts you in violation of the ucmj, your code of ethics, and your oath of office. As a former military law enforcement specialist, I can tell you if I knew your information, I would contact your unit Comander and base Comander and tell them what you are doing just so they could charge you with more. Your actions here are definitely unbecoming of an officer, and you should be ashamed of yourself.

According to the Military Times, only 27% of Soldiers feel like their senior military leadership has their best interests at heart. There's also been a slow decline of the satisfaction with the officer corps.

http://www.militarytimes.com/story/military/2014/12/07/americas-military-a-force-adrift/18596571/

Civilian criminal law and the civilian justice system are designed for civilians. The UCMJ is designed for service members. Are you saying that a person in garrison should be judged by civilian standards and by military standards while deployed simply as a matter of convenience? Sorry, I can't agree. One of the foundational issues is that judgement is best rendered by a jury of peers and I would be loathe to accept civilians as qualified. If there is a problem with the administration of military justice, that needs to be corrected wherever it is applied.

To be fair, I can't speak to the current state of affairs. However, I can speak in theory. While in Vietnam there were complaints about military justice. Obviously, many (maybe most) of these arose because almost half of those in uniform had been pressed into service against their will (drafted) and complained about everything from haircuts to food to you name it. Melvin Belli, a prominent criminal lawyer of that time, toured Vietnam visiting courts martial and reported that the system appeared fair and reasonably well administered at that time. Indeed, as a law graduate who represented a few defendants in courts martial I had to agree. Could these cases have been handled better in civilian courts whether in Vietnam or CONUS? Hell no...

BTW, it's impossible to adequately answer an either/or question with a yes of no

I sympathize with your perspective, as it seems that enforcement of UCMJ can be somewhat subjective and arbitrary (at least, in principle). However, wouldn't removing UCMJ authority outside of the chain-of-command make prosecution of alleged sexual assaults more likely? At least, this is what some congressmen like Senator Gillibrand (D-NY) argue. In theory, your chain-of-command would be more hesitant to ruin the life of a good officer.

Your article leaves much to the imagination, but it seems like you're down the proverbial creek without the proverbial paddle. I would echo CPT Forbes' advice, and suggest that you're best defense at this point, is to avoid stirring the pot.