Soldiers Charged With Violent Crimes Will Now Face More Scrutiny

Hello folks. This is an article by ProPublica, an open-access, non-profit news (ProPublica copyright info, Creative Commons license) agency that covers current events. US soldiers may face investigations by military attorneys after committing crimes: Soldiers Charged With Violent Crimes Will Now Face More Scrutiny Before They Can Simply Leave the Army


Here is a summary of the ProPublica article on soldiers charged with crimes. ProPublica has very lax copyright regulations:

The ProPublica article by Vianna Davila, published on April 19, 2024, reports that the U.S. Army will no longer allow military commanders to decide on their own whether soldiers accused of certain serious crimes can leave the service instead of facing a court-martial. This change comes in response to an investigation by ProPublica, The Texas Tribune, and Military Times that exposed how hundreds of soldiers charged with violent crimes were administratively discharged rather than going to trial.

Under the new rule, military commanders will no longer have sole authority to grant a soldier's request for a discharge in lieu of court-martial (Chapter 10) in cases involving sexual assault, domestic violence, child abuse, kidnapping, and murder. Instead, the newly created Office of Special Trial Counsel, a group of military attorneys who specialize in handling cases involving violent crimes, must also approve such decisions. Without the attorneys' approval, charges against a soldier cannot be dismissed.

Vambram said:

I served activity duty in the US Army from 1993 - 2008. Also, I am currently in the Army National Guard finishing my 13th year in the Guard. Wholeheartedly, I welcome and completely agree with those changes in the UCMJ. In my opinion, the previous rules in UCMJ, allowing Servicemembers to be administratively discharged when charged with a very serious crime, instead of going through a military trial which would have included a court martial should have never been allowed in the UCMJ.

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It is good that we both agree on how the lax rules had to be changed. I am not in the military, but found the article fascinating, as how so many people could get away with crimes whilst being a service member. Which part of the country or world did you serve in, Vambram? By the way, thank you for your service.

Vambram said:

For privacy reasons, I don't want to write on an internet forum where the different army forts are in the USA where I was stationed. But, I will admit to being deployed twice with my signal Battalion to Iraq for a total of 23 months from January 2003 through October 2006.
Like all military servicemembers, I sincerely appreciate the support from civilians.

I'm not certain that under previous UCMJ rules that being discharged, rather than a court martial, meant that military people accused of very serious crimes would always "get away" with said crimes. After the discharge from the military, civilian prosecuting district attorneys can still have them arrested, charged, and sent to a civilian trial.

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Yeah, I understand privacy reasons. While I never liked the Iraq war and thought it was a waste of taxpayer money when looking back on it, I understand that military posts are assigned based upon the needs of the military, and soldiers do not have a choice of which country to serve in. Hopefully the military treated you well, and that you did not get any PTSD from sights of war. The article was a little too deep for me, but it does show how the military will get a system that monitors major crimes better compared to in the past.