Sexual Assaults in the U.S. Military Now Being Handled by Independent Prosecutors

The U.S. military has now opened a new chapter in how it investigates and prosecutes cases of sexual assault and other major crimes, putting independent lawyers in charge of those decisions and sidelining commanders after years of pressure from Congress.

The change, long resisted by Pentagon leaders, was finally forced by frustrated members of Congress who believed that too often commanders would fail to take victims' complaints seriously or would try to protect alleged perpetrators in their units.  The new law was fueled by a persistent increase in sexual assaults and harassment across the military. 

Under the law, new special counsels will have the authority to make prosecution decisions on a number of major crimes, including murder, rape and several other sexual assault-related offenses, kidnapping, domestic violence, making or possessing child sexual abuse images, stalking and retaliation.   In a statement, Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III called it “the most important reform to our military justice system since the creation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice in 1950.”

Senior officials from the military services who are familiar with the new program said they already have more than 160 certified special trial counsels who have taken over the prosecution decisions. The lawyers will be scattered around the U.S. and the world, with larger numbers at bases and locations where there are more service members and more crime.

An independent commission that studied sexual assaults in the military suggested in its report that the use of special counsels would have a positive impact. It said the special counsels would make better decisions on what cases should go forward, resulting in higher conviction rates. Increased convictions, the report said, will encourage more accused perpetrators to make plea agreements, which alleviates the need for victims to testify at trials.  “These outcomes will also increase confidence in the public that the military is correcting its course in the prosecution of special victim cases,” the report said.

The military services have long struggled to come up with programs to prevent sexual assaults and to encourage reporting, including a number of new initiatives in recent years. But they have yet to show any real progress in lowering the number of reported assaults, and anonymous surveys still indicate that many more victims opt not to report.