What are your opinions on having all courts-martials and Article 15 readings be open for training purposes?

Good analogy.

There have been many times during my career, especially in the MP arena that I have been involved in cases, that I was not privy to the evidence used during UCMJ proceedings based on what I know I collected or processed, and it is/was quite frustrating when I knew I did my job to the fullest and this SM walked because of a plead deal with the command or with the prosecuting attorney.

I will give you an example, I had a young trooper, he was actually one of mine who had been passing bad checks at the bank and PX, being his supervisor and also a being a V5 MP, I was allowed to conduct an indirect investigation and follow up with outside entities and it was blessed off by the crim-law COL, I went around from Killeen to Temple to Austin for over 4 months collecting bad checks, receipts, and letters from businesses and other personnel on this SM, I had to go to his storage facility to retrieve the government property (TA-50) before the storage unit was auctioned off, while doing this I discovered furniture that was purchased illegally and stored so as to not be found or taken back. During the investigation I discovered he had taken an entire pack of checks from a classmate while at AIT who was a reservist and didn't realize until it was thousands of dollars down the road. He lied to the CID investigators about where he got the checks, his claim was that he sold the guy a car and he was giving him twice monthly payments for it, he had been writing these checks for almost a years before anything cam from it, I blame the bank just as much as him for they kept depositing them into his account each time he brought them in and he would hit the ATM that night and next day and withdraw the money each and every time.

Anyways, I did all this leg work and with the CID info and lying to investigators and the dollar amounts, over $10000 of checks and merchandise, he was eligible for 45 years, he made a plea agreement with the JAG office for 7 months if he plead guilty, he was reduced to E1 sentenced to 7 months and would be discharged upon completion of time. The other shoe dropped when they took the 3 months we had him in CCF as partial time served because he was a flight risk before being tried because of past history, and since Hood only had a 90-day facility at the time, he was transferred to Lewis because they had a longer term facility. He also got out early for good behavior, and then turned around and tried to accuse me of stealing his personal belongings, which crim-law and JAG both backed me up, when I had to inventory his personal belongings along with supply for his barracks room, I found countless receipts and clothes and purchased items using bad checks still with tags on them, this was part of the evidence I used to get assistance from the business owners, I received permission from crim-law to return the items to the businesses, they were happy to at least get part of their money back and that is what got most to write the letters they did for the case. He had the nerve to say that I stole his stolen property, and that it didn't matter if he bought it with bad checks it was his property, the Army felt and decided otherwise and ruled in my favor.

Now I will admit I did do something at the time that was maybe overstepping my bounds, while he was in prison up at Lewis, his parents were coming to get his personal belongings which included his car, I knew for a fact that he had not paid his car note in 6 months, and the command had been contacted repeatedly, but at that time repo guys were not allowed to come on post to get vehicles set for repossession, that was way for Soldiers to keep their transportation, if they kept the vehicle on post it couldn't be taken. Myself and my PLT SGT at the time contacted the dealership and told them about this SMs conviction and that his family was coming to get his belongings to include the car and take it back home to California, and if that happened they would most likely never see that car again, we convinced the CDR to get PM approval for the dealer to send a tow truck to get the car as a repo, something that had to happen for one to occur, just couldn't come on post, they needed PM approval which was rare as the PM felt that the dealers needed to either work with the Soldier or get a judgment from a court, but they normally wouldn't let them come to get a car. The dealer came and got the car and the parents complained that they were planning to drive the car back to Cali, and we informed them that their son hadn't made a payment in 6 months so the dealership came and repossessed the car, it was beyond our control, they wanted to know how the dealer knew where to get the car and we played dumb.

SGT Riser,

Commander's have to take into account due process and the right to privacy of the accused. While we do give up many of our constitutional rights we can take away the ones that apply to a fair and impartial hearing. I don't know if I would feel comfortable having an audience if I was administering an Article 15 to a Soldier. As a commander I would want my 1SG and the SMs 1st line in the room. Soldiers are allowed to call witnesses as well. For me to do my job I would need to be in a contained environment that would allow me to control the conversation an what was happening in that room. With a "mob" in attendance things could get out of control. Moans and cat calls during the reading could detracted from the commander's power base and degrade the entire proceeding. Legal is a sensitive subject for commanders and it is one of the few things that can get us fired on the spot.