[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 6]
[House]
[Page 8797]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




               REFORM OUR BROKEN MILITARY JUSTICE SYSTEM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Speier) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. SPEIER. Mr. Speaker, for more than 7 years, I have spoken out 
against the broken military justice system that allows commanders to 
decide how sexual assaults and other criminal offenses are prosecuted 
under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Our servicemembers are 
stuck in a world where their fates rest within the chain of command, 
where bias is king and justice often a jester.
  Today, I stand here sick at heart that, once again, a rape conviction 
has been overturned because of the broken military justice system. In 
this instance, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces threw out 
Airman Rodney Boyce's rape and assault conviction because of the 
involvement of Lieutenant General Craig Franklin, who referred the case 
to court-martial.
  This all came about because, in 2013, General Franklin was admonished 
by his superiors for tossing out the aggravated sexual assault 
conviction of a fellow F-16 pilot, a unanimous decision by a jury of 
his peers. Certainly, a general should not have the power to overturn 
the findings of a court of law simply because he thinks his buddy could 
not possibly have committed the sexual assault.
  But because Franklin was appropriately admonished for this abuse of 
power, the U.S. Court of Appeals found that his subsequent decision to 
move forward with an entirely separate Boyce case constituted unlawful 
command influence.
  This is made more ridiculous by two facts: first, the military judge 
during the actual trial found no evidence of unlawful command 
influence; second, the appeals court that threw out the Boyce case also 
did not find evidence of unlawful command influence, just the 
``appearance'' of it.
  So, apparently, unlawful command influence is like pornography: there 
is no definition, but judges know it when they see it.
  Colleagues, it is past time to reform this unjust system that ignores 
jury decisions on the whim of a convening authority. The military must 
remove the power to decide whether or not to prosecute sexual assault 
cases from the chain of command and give the authority to independent 
military prosecutors.
  I have met with countless survivors who have suffered in unique and 
horrifying ways. There is a hauntingly clear pattern to nearly all of 
their experiences: the perpetrator was let off the hook and the victim 
fellow servicemember was revictimized by an unjust system, all at the 
hands of the chain of command that is supposed to be there to protect 
and defend them.
  The sense of betrayal by their command is marrow deep and life 
altering. Many describe the feelings of this betrayal more akin to a 
violation at the hands of a family member rather than a boss or 
coworker.
  All that we need to do is to allow trained and experienced lawyers in 
the military to make a legal judgment about a crime. This in no way 
impacts the commander's authority. It simply gives servicemembers what 
we civilians take for granted, which is relying on a trained prosecutor 
to decide whether to move forward with serious charges of sexual 
assault.
  Our servicemembers deserve and need a system that they can trust to 
be fair and impartial. Letting a convicted rapist walk free because of 
a mere appearance of unlawful command influence--forget the fact that 
he was, in fact, convicted of the assault--shows just how deep the 
problem runs.
  As this case shows, the perception and the reality is that commanders 
with a built-in conflict of interest and with little or no legal 
training are deciding whether to move forward to trial. They make this 
decision not solely based on legal reasoning, but a myriad of other 
factors--like how well they fly a jet or how well they are liked by 
others--that should not be injected into the decisionmaking.
  Our servicemembers deserve and need a system that they can trust to 
be fair and impartial. We have the power and duty to fundamentally 
reform the system to ensure that they are treated with a level of 
fairness that befits their sacrifice and service.
  Mr. Speaker, the words of one military servicemember still haunt me 
and ring in my ears, when she said to me:

       I joined the military to fight the enemy. I never thought 
     that he would be right next to me.

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