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| Photo from Stars and Stripes via Google12.12.19 |
Here's a war story requested by my son, Andy:
War Story #9 The Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ)
Just as in Gunsmoke there was only one way to handle the killers and the spoilers back in the 1960s. That was with regular Army officers and the smell of . . . (extra duty). That is lieutenants, usually from a soldier’s unit or one nearby, were detailed as trial and defense counsels. More senior officers were detailed as presidents of the board, and other unit officers and sometimes noncommissioned officers were detailed as members of the board. Enlisted soldiers could request to have noncommissioned officers on their court martial board but it was said that commanders usually picked crusty old sergeants who felt that you must be guilty or you wouldn’t be court martialed in the first place. There were few such requests. This all changed I don’t remember exactly when but at about the time mess halls were starting to be called dining facilities. Today, courts martials are handled by qualified lawyers and judges from the United States Army Trial Defense Service (USATDS or TDS), an independent Field Operating Agency within the US Army Judge Advocate General's Corps, and part of the US Army Legal Services Agency (USALSA). The TDS motto is "Defending Those Who Defend America." [Editor’s Note: But like UPS, they also prosecute.]
In 1963, one James Hamilton graduated from Yale Law School and came on active duty as a Field Artillery first lieutenant. The draft was in force then so Jim joined the Army Reserves rather than seek a deferment while in law school. This was pre-Vietnam. The deal was to serve two years in the combat arms before joining the Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) corps as a lawyer. Us brown bar lieutenants were thus saddled with a senior lieutenant who had never been on active duty and didn’t even know how to wear his field gear. Moreover, he was paid more than us because his law school time counted for longevity. But we bit our tongues, remained calm, saluted, and welcomed him into our battery (Battery B, 1st Battalion 9th Artillery, or as our crazy battalion sergeant-major answered the phone, “One slash nine, right over the Maine” (Kitzingen, West Germany). Inevitably, a soldier got into a fight one day and was called before a Special Court Martial with our gnarly Major, the battalion executive officer, as president. Jim was detailed as defense counsel and I was detailed as trial counsel. The rule was that the defense counsel had to be senior to the trial counsel. The charge was violation of Article 134 for conduct prejudicial to good order and discipline in the Armed Forces. This is a general article and not what most civilian lawyers are or were used to dealing with.
When the trial commenced, Jim started objecting at every turn. Our major became a little prickly, closed the court and called both counsels to the bench. He told Jim, look here, we are just ordinary folks trying to get at the facts so you must stop objecting. You could tell that Jim was not too happy with that turn of events. However, the trial continued, and the defendant was found guilty in the end. I had beaten a graduate of Yale Law school! That evening Jim came over to our quarters for a few beers and he was still livid. He went on a rant claiming that Article 134 was unconstitutional and he was going to appeal all the way to the Supreme Court. He never did that. I could appreciate his point of view but I also felt that military rules had to be more strict than civilian rules. In war, good order and discipline are often the difference between life and death. Maybe the poor soldier would not have even been court martialed in today’s military but that was how things went back then.
Years later in the early Clinton years, there was a White House lawyer named Vincent Foster who was defending the Clintons in the many scandals launched by their political opponents. You may recall The White House Travelgate Affair. Vincent Foster was suffering from depression and one day during that scandal he committed suicide at Fort Marcy Park in Virginia on 20 July 1993. In the news I read that before his death he had consulted with none other than my old court martial opponent, James Hamilton, who was now a high-power DC lawyer. There were several investigations about the cause of Foster’s death, and all found suicide rather than murder arranged by Hillary Clinton as charged by the conspiracy theorists. Well the last investigation was by Ken Starr for whom Brett Cavanaugh served and who has been blamed for delaying the special counsel’s finding of suicide. Google Swindler and Berlin v. United States to see Jim Hamilton’s involvement.
At https://www.morganlewis.com, you can find that James Hamilton, now designated as a DC Super Lawyer, is a member of the Morgan, Lewis, and Bockius Law Firm with an impressive bio. I shouldn’t but can’t help but feeling like a David to his Goliath. Do not seek me out as a lawyer today.
19 April 2019
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