Change near in prosecution of military sexual assaults
WASHINGTON – After years of debate, Congress is on track to change how the U.S. military handles sexual assault cases, by taking some authority out of the hands of commanders and using independent prosecutors.
Spurred on by a growing number of sexual misconduct cases in the military, and buoyed by support from President Joe Biden and senior Pentagon leaders, the changes were included in a broader defense bill that passed the House late Tuesday and is headed to the Senate for almost certain approval.
But several senators on Wednesday, led by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., said the measure doesn’t go far enough. She said the Pentagon was able to argue successfully against fully removing commanders from the cases.
Still, Rep. Jackie Speier, the head of the House Armed Services military personnel subcommittee, described it as a historic change “the likes of which we have not seen in over 70 years.
“By moving the decision to prosecute a servicemember for rape, domestic violence, murder and other serious crimes out of the chain of command to an independent military prosecutor, we would finally address a gaping wound for sexual assault survivors and provide a pathway to justice,” she said.
The campaign to improve military prosecutions has been struggling for years, but it gained momentum when Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and other leaders began to publicly acknowledge this year that the military has failed to make progress in preventing sexual assaults and that changes were needed.
Gillibrand and others who had pushed for a broader overhaul agreed that the changes in the bill represent strides forward. But they vowed to try again to get a separate bill passed that would eliminate commanders from the process and expand the number of crimes that would be handled by the independent prosecutors.
The key problem, Gillibrand said on Wednesday, is that commanders still will play a key role in sexual assault cases.