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Archive for January, 2024

Army Stands Up Special Trial Counsel with Independent Authority for 13 UCMJ Offenses

Tuesday, January 2nd, 2024

WASHINGTON — The Congressionally mandated Office of Special Trial Counsel officially stands up today with independent prosecution and referral authority for 13 UCMJ offenses known as “covered offenses.”

“Today marks a historic day for the Army as the Office of Special Trial Counsel begins exercising its independent decision-making and prosecution authority for sexual assault, domestic violence and other serious offenses,” said Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth. “The Office of Special Trial Counsel will execute its mission to seek justice in the best interests of the Army community and build trust in the military justice system by employing a worldwide team of highly skilled and specially trained attorneys and legal professionals.”

Col. Rob Rodrigues, acting lead special trial counsel, will bring 22 years of courtroom experience, serving as a prosecutor, defense counsel and supervisor of military justice practitioners.

“The creation of our office has been years in the making and was born out of the recognition that the Army needs to improve the way it processes and prosecutes serious crimes,” he said. “We have taken the lessons learned of the past 20 years and built an organization at the direction of Congress designed to improve decision-making and the handling of cases at every phase of the military justice process.”

The Office of Special Trial Counsel is headquartered on Fort Belvoir, Virginia, and operates 28 field offices across the Army.

Beginning today, the office will become responsible for making independent decisions about serious offenses such as sexual assault, domestic violence and murder. This includes the authority to send a case to a court martial. This authority was traditionally held by commanders.

“This change will ensure that each case is evaluated by an independent and objective legal expert,” he said. “If we determine a case should go to trial, the attorneys who work in our office, known as Special Trial Counsel, will be responsible for prosecuting the case.”

Maj. Amanda P. Beckham is a Special Trial Counsel attorney at the Fort Jackson field office.

“This independence means that the attorneys, much like in a civilian district attorney office, are deciding which cases go forward to trial based upon the case’s evidence,” she said.

Rodrigues said the most important feature of this initiative is the exercise of independent decision-making regarding the disposition and prosecution of cases by the OSTC.

“Our office has been empowered to independently evaluate and prosecute cases based on the facts and evidence, free from outside influence,” he said. “Our goal is to seek justice in every case. We will evaluate cases based on the evidence and apply an expert legal review to determine which cases should go forward to trial. We will ensure this process is fair for all involved in the military justice process.”

The Secretary of the Army said it will be a collaborative approach among the commanders and the special trial counsel.

“While the Office of Special Trial Counsel assumes some of the authority previously held by commanders with regards to the disposition of allegations, commanders still retain the overall responsibility for the well-being of Soldiers and mitigating the impact of these incidents within their units,” she said.

Rodrigues said the OSTC has two main goals. The first is to seek justice in every case.

“We will evaluate each case on the merits and apply a rigorous review to determine which cases should go forward to trial,” he said. “We will make disposition decisions in light of the evidence, the interests of the Army, which includes the alleged victim, all while respecting the due process rights of Soldiers accused of misconduct.”

His team’s second goal is to restore and promote trust for the military justice system.

“We will accomplish this by employing a team of highly trained and qualified expert prosecutors, paralegals and support personnel who are the best at what they do in the Army,” he said. “We will treat victims with respect and care. Throughout every phase of the case, we will communicate with victims and ensure they are informed and have the opportunity to provide input into our decisions. We will hold ourselves to the highest ethical standards and ensure the rights of accused Solders are always respected.”

Beckham said the Special Trial Counsel will provide victims with honest, clear communications.

“A victim may be more willing to come forward if he or she knows that the Special Trial Counsel may exercise authority over potential misconduct,” she said. “One of our goals is to have a personal meeting with each victim to inform them of case progress or case disposition.”

“I want victims to know that our office is fully committed to seeking justice and earning back trust in the system,” Rodrigues said. “If you report a crime, it will be thoroughly investigated, and our office will make the best decision we can based on the evidence. You will have the opportunity to provide input about your case directly to our prosecutors. You will be treated fairly and with compassion throughout the entire process, regardless of the final outcome of your case.”

Rodrigues said his office is the largest, best trained, most experienced group of prosecutors the Army has assembled into one organization in the 22 years he has served.

“Each Special Trial Counsel prosecutor has been hand-selected and certified to serve in our office,” he said. “Supporting them are our NCO paralegals and Special Victim liaisons, who will provide compassionate support to victim throughout each case. I’m in awe of the talent we have in this organization that truly represents the best of Army legal professionals.”

By Shannon Collins

231 Military Personnel and Veterans Send Joint Chiefs “Declaration of Military Accountability”

Monday, January 1st, 2024

This morning I became aware on Instagram and X that at 4am EST today, the Joint Chiefs of Staff received an email with a letter attached titled, “Declaration of Military Accountability”.

The letter was signed by 231 active duty service members and veterans. The letter is not addressed to military leaders but rather to the American people. However, it does call out many uniformed leaders by name.

The point of the letter, as you will read, is the conduct of military leaders regarding the use of experimental vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic.

While I won’t go so far as to call this action unprecedented, I cannot recall during my service and retirement where this many active personnel have signed their name to a document calling for the accountability of the military’s unformed leadership. This number is even more striking to me as the recent call for signatures was not well publicized. The authors do plan to open the letter to additional supporting signatures soon.

The letter lays out a general plan of accountability and a call to action for those who share the views of the authors. It does not incite violence or call for signatories and sympathizers to violate their oaths of office.

Considering it is New Years Day and not a duty day, there has been no reaction so far from the Department of Defense or those called out by name in the letter. I do expect this to make the national news this week.

-Eric Graves

Editor

The contents of the letter are seen below:

An Open Letter to the American People from Signatories of this Declaration of Military Accountability

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

–John Adams

In the course of human events it sometimes becomes necessary to admonish the lawless, encourage the fainthearted, and strengthen the weak. We have reached just such a time in our history. The affairs of our nation are now steeped in avaricious corruption and our once stalwart institutions, including the Dept of Defense, are failing to fulfill the moral obligations upon which they were founded. Standing upon our natural and constitutional rights, we hereby apprise the American people that we have exhausted all internal efforts to rectify recent criminal activity within the Armed Forces.

In the Declaration of Independence our founding fathers sought separation. We seek no separation, but through this letter and the efforts we pledge herein, we pursue restoration through accountability. We intend to rebuild trust and restore the rule of law, particularly within the Armed Forces. Ultimately, we strive to once again become a moral people, restoring our nation, and making it again worthy of the great gift of liberty won by the colonial-era American people.

While implementing the COVID-19 vaccine mandate, military leaders broke the law, trampled constitutional rights, denied informed consent, permitted unwilling medical experimentation, and suppressed the free exercise of religion.

Service members and families were significantly harmed by these actions. Their suffering continues to be felt financially, emotionally, and physically. Some service members became part of our ever-growing veteran homeless population, some developed debilitating vaccine injuries, and some even lost their lives. In an apparent attempt to avoid accountability, military leaders are continuing to ignore our communications regarding these injuries and the laws that were broken.

For GEN Milley, ADM Grady, GEN McConville, ADM Gilday, ADM Lescher, Gen Brown, Gen Berger, Gen Smith, VADM Kilby, VADM Nowell, VADM Fuller, LTG Martin, Lt Gen Davis, MG Edmonson, GEN Williams, ADM Fagan, VADM Buck, Lt Gen Clark, MG Francis, LTG Dingle, Lt Gen Miller, RADM Gillingham, and numerous others;

These individuals enabled lawlessness and the unwilling experimentation on service members. The moral and physical injuries they helped inflict are significant. They betrayed the trust of service members and the American people.

Their actions caused irreparable harm to the Armed Forces and the institutions for which we have fought and bled.

These leaders refused to resign or take any other action to hold themselves accountable, nor have they attempted to repair the harm their policies and actions have caused. Since there has yet to be any accountability, the undersigned give our word to do everything morally permissible and legally possible to hold our own leadership accountable. We intend to rebuild trust by demonstrating that leaders cannot cast aside constitutional rights or the law for political expediency.

The flag and general officers are far from the only ones complicit in recent illegal activities, as a significant number of SES leaders and political appointees contributed. Evidence indicates that other executive agencies are engaging in illegal activity. However, as service members and veterans, we feel particularly responsible for the DoD and, in accordance with our oaths, we will make every effort to demonstrate by example, how an institution can put its own house in order.

We the undersigned, on behalf of hundreds of thousands of service members and the American people, while appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for guidance and purity of intention, mutually pledge to each other that we will do everything in our power, through lawful word and action, to hold accountable military leaders who failed to follow the law when their leadership and moral courage was most desperately needed.

In the coming years, thousands within our network will run for Congress and seek appointments to executive branch offices, while those of us still serving on active duty will continue to put fulfilling our oaths ahead of striving for rank or position. For those who achieve the lawful authority to do so, we pledge to recall from retirement the military leaders who broke the law and will convene courts-martial for the crimes they committed. For those of us who attain legislative offices, we pledge to introduce legislation to remove all retirement income for the military leaders who were criminally complicit, and we will ensure none serve in or retire from the Senior Executive Service.

This endeavor will be a continuous process with a long-term time horizon, but fulfilling our oaths to defend the Constitution requires just such persistent vigilance. Likewise, we are obligated, and so commit, to train those who come after us to fulfill their duty in achieving this accountability and safeguarding against such leadership failures hereafter.

Our nation was once great because it was good. It was built on moral principles founded in natural law and yet, the recent acceleration of moral relativism has us headed towards a precipitous implosion. While all good things come to an end, we refuse to allow our nation to go quietly into the depths of decadence and decay. We promise to exhaust all moral, ethical, and legal means to restore the rule of law and will begin by attempting to hold senior military leaders accountable. The Constitution is the supreme law of our land.

We will fight to enforce that law and put an end to the two-tiered justice system. May future generations see our efforts and, God willing, may they also be recipients of the great gift of liberty that we have had the honor of safeguarding.

The letter and signatories can be seen here.

Happy New Year!

Monday, January 1st, 2024