Cylinder said:
Being late for work as a criminal offense.
Failing to show up for work as a criminal offense.
Failing to complete a travel itenerary as a criminal offense.
Failure to show proper respect to your boss as a criminal offense.
Failure to follow orders from your boss as a criminal offense.
Failure to report personal relationships with certain persons as a criminal offense.
Failure to report membership in certain organizations as a criminal offense.
Having sexual relationships with certain persons as a criminal offense.
Failure to dress properly for work as a criminal offense.
Making certain statements about your workplace or coworkers as a criminal offense.
My thoughts exactly. Civilian courts cannot try military servicemembers for such offenses. They don't understand them or why they are offenses.
That said, many times the military services decline to prosecute one of their servicemembers over whom they have jurisdiction under the UCMJ and allow civilian authorities to prosecute them under state law. Nevertheless, the services always retain jurisdiction to try a servicemember on active duty status under the UCMJ for any criminal offense. Under the right circumstances, a former servicemember can even be brought back onto active duty status involuntarily for the sole purpose of charging and trying him for an offense under the UCMJ.
Cleo,
The U.S. military is an authoritarian hierarchy. It is not operated as a democracy. A typical military court, however, is composed of a military judge, who is a military officer and a lawyer too, and usually a military panel (the military term for "jury"). The panel must consist of persons equal to or greater in rank than the accused. If the accused is an enlisted person, he or she has a right to have at least one third of the panel members be enlisted persons as well, although they must be non-commissioned officers.
The members of the panel each get one vote, regardless of their rank. No one on the panel may assert his or her rank during the deliberations of the panel. Indeed, no one on the panel may be within another panel member's direct chain of command. Thus, it is unlawful and a criminal offense for a colonel to order a captain to vote for or against guilt, for example. Thus, the panel itself is entirely democratic.
The judge does not tell the panel members how to vote. He is there to rule on evidentiary matters, to ensure that the trial proceeds according to the procedural rules, and to instruct the panel as to the law, and to insure the panel's verdict is lawful. The panel determines whether the accused is guilty, and if it determines he is, then there is a second phase to the trial, called the sentencing phase, during which the panel hears evidence relating to extenuating and mitigating factors surrounding the offense and the accused's background and military career. The panel then recommends an appropriate sentence. The military judge reviews the sentence, hears any objections from counsel to it, and the case is sent to the appropriate court-martial convening authority within the accused's chain of command, usually a Colonel or a General, for approval and execution of the sentence.
I have no experience whatsoever with the kind of military tribunals which are contemplating trying the enemy combatants and other prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. They are trying the accused there not under the UCMJ, but under U.S. and International Law. The UCMJ offenses do not apply to persons who are not servicemembers of the armed forces of the U.S. Those persons must be charged under applicable U.S. law or international law. The proper historical models for the trials are more likely the Nuremburg War Crimes Trials than garden variety courts-martial in the U.S.
I suspect there is much more political pressure on the prosecutors in the present Gitmo cases than in most courts-martial under the UCMJ. The world is watching these cases and The President of the United States is watching, whereas the rest of the world scarcely hears anything about the United States of America v. PFC Robert Jones, wherein PFC Jones is charged with dereliction of duty, for instance.
AS
