From the Protect Our Defenders blog.
"While we didn’t get all the votes we need, we are making serious progress. And everyone is talking about Congressman William Enyart, a former military prosecutor, staff judge advocate, and commanding General, who after deep personal deliberation and soul searching had a change of heart and voted in favor of the amendment.
Watch Rep. Enyart’s impassioned and heartfelt speech here."
Congressman William Enyart's Change of HeartThis happened on May 8, 2014, just a few days ago. It shows that through education, we can promote change. It moved my heart greatly to hear someone who has served in all capacities in the military in the military justice system come out and say yes, the prosecution needs to be taken out of the hands of Command!
Published on May 8, 2014
Learn more at http://protectourdefenders.com
Date: 5/7/14. Transcript:
Thank you Mr. Chairman. I've listened to this debate with a great deal of interest, and very conflicting thoughts on it. I'm probably unique in this room in that I've served as a military attorney. I've been a prosecutor. I've been a defense attorney. I've been the staff judge advocate, and I've been a commanding general. So I've served in each and every one of those roles. Many years ago, defense attorneys were taken out of the chain of command, because of the concern of the appearance of impropriety. The concern over the possibility of command influence. And after debating the issue in my own mind, I've come to the conclusion that we need to do the same thing with the prosecution. And I don't state this lightly, because as a former commanding general I value very highly the ability to have control over the UCMJ. But I think that we need to set the office of the prosecutor free from the possibility of command influence. Commanding generals writes the OER, writes the Officer Efficiency Report, controls the promotion of the staff judge advocate. And so even if you have the most honest above board commanding general in the world, the staff judge advocate may well feel as though he or she is being influenced by that commanding general. So it is with reluctance, I have to say, because I understand all the roles that everyone of those people plays in that, and I believe that the news stories that we've seen about generals gone wrong are the aberration. The vast majority of military attorneys, military commanders and military personnel are of the finest caliber. But unfortunately we've had incidents of people who have no right to serve in the position they served in. So I'm going to vote for Representative Speier's amendment. Because I've been convinced after listening to the debate, and particularly Representative Gabbard's remarks, that we need to take military prosecutors out of the chain of command.
Date: 5/7/14. Transcript:
Thank you Mr. Chairman. I've listened to this debate with a great deal of interest, and very conflicting thoughts on it. I'm probably unique in this room in that I've served as a military attorney. I've been a prosecutor. I've been a defense attorney. I've been the staff judge advocate, and I've been a commanding general. So I've served in each and every one of those roles. Many years ago, defense attorneys were taken out of the chain of command, because of the concern of the appearance of impropriety. The concern over the possibility of command influence. And after debating the issue in my own mind, I've come to the conclusion that we need to do the same thing with the prosecution. And I don't state this lightly, because as a former commanding general I value very highly the ability to have control over the UCMJ. But I think that we need to set the office of the prosecutor free from the possibility of command influence. Commanding generals writes the OER, writes the Officer Efficiency Report, controls the promotion of the staff judge advocate. And so even if you have the most honest above board commanding general in the world, the staff judge advocate may well feel as though he or she is being influenced by that commanding general. So it is with reluctance, I have to say, because I understand all the roles that everyone of those people plays in that, and I believe that the news stories that we've seen about generals gone wrong are the aberration. The vast majority of military attorneys, military commanders and military personnel are of the finest caliber. But unfortunately we've had incidents of people who have no right to serve in the position they served in. So I'm going to vote for Representative Speier's amendment. Because I've been convinced after listening to the debate, and particularly Representative Gabbard's remarks, that we need to take military prosecutors out of the chain of command.
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So we are making progress, we have to just keep educating and ringing the bell so that our service personnel will finally get a REAL Justice System.
Over and out,
Myst
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