Replies

“In a 3-2 opinion published last week, the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces said that because then-Lt. Gen. Craig Franklin, the authority in the case, had been told to retire or be fired because of his decisions in previous sexual assault cases, his move 10 days later to court-martial the airman could appear to be tainted by unlawful command influence”

“Recently, a military appellate court once again overturned a rape conviction on the grounds of unlawful command influence. This time (United States v. Garcia), the source of the influence went beyond a base commander or even a service chief and included comments made by President Obama and the general climate around sexual assault in the military command structure . . . It is with this background that the Garcia case was decided. The Garcia opinion noted that “with multiple references — some overt and others thinly veiled — to the Army’s efforts to confront sexual assault, the government attempted to impermissibly influence the panel’s findings by injecting command policy into the trial.” In the Garcia case, the prosecutor repeatedly, and improperly, mentioned the Army’s stance on sexual assaults.”
and
“Then, in the high-profile prosecution of Army Brig. Gen. Jeffery Sinclair for sexual assault against a subordinate, the military judge ruled that unlawful command influence had tainted the trial. Former Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. James Amos, was also found to have exercised unlawful command influence when he commenced on a worldwide speaking tour addressing the Corps about the problem of sexual assault. His actions resulted in a military court of appeals overturning a conviction for sexual assault.”

“A retired admiral is accusing the highest levels of the Navy legal corps at the Pentagon of improperly interfering in the case of a decorated Navy SEAL convicted of sexual assault. Retired Rear Adm. Patrick J. Lorge charges in a May 5 signed affidavit that the then-judge advocate general of the Navy and her deputy tried to persuade him not to exonerate the sailor because it would be bad public relations for the Navy and hurt Mr. Lorge’s career.”

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While these and many others that come to mind are all sexual misconduct cases, they prove a pattern of improper command influence in military trials under the former occupant of the Commander-in-Chief’s office. That is certainly relevant to the question of whether there was improper political influence in yet another trial with political significance.