The Army began publishing monthly summary results of courts-martial in November as a way to add "an additional degree of transparency in the court-martial process," an officer told Army Times.

However, the Army began posting the lists with much less fanfare than the Navy and Marine Corps.

The service did not announce the move toward transparency; the first month's results were published in the Army's online Freedom of Information Act reading room in early November, though the summaries were not requested under that act.

The posting provides details on 51 October verdicts, including the name and rank of the soldier on trial, charges faced, findings on those charges and punishment imposed, if any.

Follow-up posts came in December and January, part of an effort to allow "the public to be able to see what the Army is doing regarding criminal conduct within the ranks," Col. Michael Mulligan, chief of the Office of the Judge Advocate General's Criminal Law Division, said in an emailed response to questions.

The Army chose the FOIA reading room for the summaries over a news release or a social-media platform because the room houses other information about criminal proceedings and does not require a log-in or exist behind an Army firewall, Mulligan said. The Navy puts its information out in a monthly news release, while the Marine Corps' monthly summary is available via a link on the service's homepage, Marines.mil. The Navy's decision to release the summaries was announced by Navy Secretary Ray Mabus shortly before publication.

In the Army, the information has been available publicly at the installation level, Mulligan said, but the summaries are the first time the information has been consolidated across the service for release.

Another difference between services: Unlike the Navy and Marine Corps, the Army's summaries include the names of service members who were acquitted of all charges at court-martial. The sea services initially released no names with the results, then began publishing the names of those convicted after a media query, but kept out the names of those found not guilty because of potential "unintended consequences for the participants in the proceedings," a Navy spokesman said at the time.

Army officials included the names of those acquitted because they already are a matter of public record and because the transparency push "includes public access to not only information about convicted Soldiers but information about acquittals as well," Mulligan said.

Eight soldiers of the 51 who faced a court-martial in October were acquitted of all charges, according to the summary. Five of the 56 on trial in November were acquitted of all charges, as were seven of the 54 in December.

"While the vast majority of those accused of crimes in the Army are convicted and punished, it is the sign of a well-functioning criminal justice system that acquittals do occur when the Army is unable to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt," Mulligan said.

The Air Force does not publish a servicewide results summary. The Coast Guard publishes courts-martial findings via servicewide message as part of "good order and discipline statistics" released every six months; names are not included.

About Kevin Lilley

Kevin Lilley is the features editor of Military Times.

Share:
In Other News
Load More