Evening star., 1948-07-04
Army Justice
Is Revamped
CT to Get a Squarer Deal
Under Provisions
of New Law
BY Rowland Evans, Jr

OF New Law
By Rowland Evans, Jr.
Army justice will soon be wearing
new and whittier robes, tailored by
the Eightieth Congress in an effort
to assure completely fair treatment
under Army law for officers and
enlisted men.
Secretary of the Army Kenneth c.
Royal in an interview said the new
system will give the American SOL
dier better protection than any
member of military service has
ever enjoyed.
We've been working on this for
long time" Mr.. Royal said. THE
Army started a movement to change
the old system of justice in 1945.
The president of the American Bar
Association was asked to appoint
committee of eminent American
lawyers and judges to investigate the
whole process of Army justice. Ar
thur Vanderbilt was chairman.
"They worked on it for almost a
year and gave us their recommended
tions. We pretty generally accepted
all of them"
Congress did, too, and added
couple of its own.
Enlisted Men Can Sit
Mr.. Royal pointed out that under
the National Defense Act OF 1947
the Secretary of the Army was put
in direct charge of all Army justice.
That job formerly was handled by
the Undersecretary.
Probably the most revolutionary
change allows enlisted men to sit
as members of general and special
courts-martial.
(The principal difference be-
tween special and general court
/ is that the former is limited in
the sentence it may impose)
This has never before been done
in our Army, although some other
armies (notably the French) per-
nit it.
The new system allows any en-
listed defendant to have enlisted
men on the bench to the number
of at least one-third of the total
sitting there.
Appeals Broadened
Veterans organizations are given
credit for getting this provision
written into the law. The Army,
however, is not unfriendly to the
idea.
Another significant change broad
ems and enlarges the review OF a
case on appeal through judicial
council under the Judge Advocate
General, composed of three general
officers.
A third important change allows
the accused to be represented by
counsel at pretrial Investigations.
The accuseds counsel has the right
to cross-examine prosecution wit
nesses.
| Here are some of the other high
points:
| l. A court may not be repri-
manded, censured or admonished
after it has delivered verdict. It's
been alleged that some courts-mar-
tial during the last war were in
fuenced by fear of tough command
ing officers in making decisions.
2. The claw member" of each
court must be a professional lawyer
and certified by the JAG as quail
fed.
Defense Gets Lawyer
3. Both the prosecution and de-
fense must be conducted by quail
fled lawyers-"to the extent prac-
ticable." During wartime this
might not be possible in some cases)
The new law says also that if the
prosecution has a trained lawyer
the defense must have one.
4. Any convicted World War II
soldier may reopen his case and get
a new trial upon good cause
shown" within one year of the end
of the war (not yet arrived for this
Ipurpose) or the final review of his
case, whichever is later.
l S. A special JAG corps is estab-
lished by the new law, with its own
promotion list. This provision isn't
too well liked by the Army. Both
Gen. Eisenhower and Secretary Of
the Army Royal told congressional
committees they were against the
: principal of separate promotion
lists for any service.
The JAG will assign members of
this special corps to various di-
visions as they are needed.
These new provisions will not be-
; come effective for eight months.
Some quarters believe this is to give
all the services time to get together
on reorganization of military justice
based on these new Army pro-
visions.
distributed By the Associated fress.)