Posted on 12/09/2003 9:49:06 PM PST by kattracks
Edited on 07/12/2004 4:11:04 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
An Army hearing officer has recommended administrative punishment
(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...
This man's actions saved numerous American lives and what thanks did he get? The military is too concerned with public relations campaigns and not concerned enough about rooting out terror cells and protecting our troops.
I seem to recall that the UCMJ, the Uniform Code of Military Justice outlined three levels of punishment.
The highest level is the court-martial. There are several flavors of court-martial, including the summary court-martial, the general court-martial, and maybe even one more that I can't recall.
Each type of court-martial has associated with it a limitation on the level of punishment that can be meted out which is consistent with the level of care expected from the process. A summary court-martial I think is presided over by a single officer, whereas a general court-martial requires a panel of officers to sit in judgement.
A commanding officer can choose to subject a subordinate to a court-martial if he believes the charges warrant it.
An alternative to a court-martial is Non-Judicial Punishment (which I have seen abbreviated as NJP). This form of punishment is a written threat from a commander to court-martial a subordinate unless the subordinate accepts the non-judicial punishment. The maximum permissible punishment is spelled out in the UCMJ. Loss of one months pay, loss of one pay grade, that sort of thing or any combination that does not exceed the maximums.
Finally, I thought there was a type of punishment called "administrative punishment". This type of punishment also has its limits, but can be imposed at the discretion of the commanding officer. Two weeks extra duty is one example of an administrative punishment.
The goal of this hierarchy of punishments is to make the "punishment" fit the crime and to prevent abuse of authority on the part of commanding officers. Without a presiding officer and a formal proceeding, there can be no court-martial. Without a written offer and written acceptance by the subordinate, there can be no Non-Judicial Punishment. Administrative punishments require little justification by the commanding officer, but the subordinate has the right to complain to higher levels of command or to the Judge Advocate General if the punishments seem out of line.
I don't recall seeing "reprimand" as any of the punishments associated with these proceedings. A verbal reprimand could be as simple as an officer stopping an improperly uniformed subordinate and ordering a correction to the uniform.
The point of outlining this is that the article states that the recommendation was against court-martial and for administrative punishment. As I thought it was defined, administrative punishment can be something which causes a "learning experience" for the subordinate but which leaves no lasting mark on his record.
Non-Judicial Punishments do cause an inclusion in the record of the paperwork threatening court-martial and documenting the acceptance or non-acceptance by the subordinate. I vaguely recall that there might be a mechanism for removing Non-Judicial Punishment proceedings from a person's record.
Since my experience was as an enlisted man, I may be unaware of special provisions for disciplining officers. Still, it would appear that the punishment for West may be very slight. It seems a shame that he waited until he felt it was necessary to violate the policy before challenging it. The policy itself represents an order from his superiors as to how he will conduct himself. West's superiors decided that their judgement in this matter should prevail. If they can now say that they were mistaken, then they should change the policy and exonerate West.
It would appear, however, that the policy stands and thus, that the superiors do not believe that the policy is mistaken. Deciding the policy is well within their authority.
....Mr. Puckett quoted his client as saying, "Great news indeed."
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God bless our troops ~ and Freepers ~ every one!
I believe the SLB option is what may well happen. I am encouraging him to do so.
Stay Safe Ya'll !
And make it clear the first rule of engagement is to kill the bad guy, break his stuff, and get intel asap.
Mark Steyn indicates we are still asking Syria's Assad nicely.
Nicely should only apply to shooting a la Specialist "Machine Gun" Ross.
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