Obama's comments on sexual assault cases in military backfire

[Revmitchell]

When President Barack Obama harshly criticized members of the military who commit sexual assault, saying that they should be "“prosecuted, stripped of their positions, court-martialed, fired, dishonorably discharged,” he inadvertently created “unlawful command influence" throughout the armed forces that will be "certain to complicate almost all prosecutions for sexual assault," Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times reports.
Steinhauer notes:
“Unlawful command influence” refers to actions of commanders that could be interpreted by jurors as an attempt to influence a court-martial, in effect ordering a specific outcome. Mr. Obama, as commander in chief of the armed forces, is considered the most powerful person to wield such influence.
The president’s remarks might have seemed innocuous to civilians, but military law experts say defense lawyers will seize on the president’s call for an automatic dishonorable discharge, the most severe discharge available in a court-martial, arguing that his words will affect their cases.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/...mments-on-Sexual-Assault-in-Military-Backfire

 

[Revmitchell]

This is what happens when you put a novice in the office.

 

[Don]

Rev, most people will overlook this story.

Here's the impact: at least a half-dozen sexual assault cases in the military have already been overturned in favor of the individual conducting the assault because of what the president said. Defense attorneys have latched onto the commander-in-chief's words and presented a legal argument that military courts cannot prosecute military offenders because our commander has already identified what the punishment should be, instead of allowing the legal system and the courts to do their jobs.

If the military members on the jury panels identify a lesser punishment, lower-ranking commanders are within their rights to punish the jury members for not following the order of the commander-in-chief. It seems a bit far-fetched...but then again, a lot of things I used to think were far-fetched have been happening over the last twenty years.

 

[thisnumbersdisconnected]

Forgive me for having an inconvenient memory, but isn't the idiot that said these things supposedly a graduate of Harvard Law?

Really?? Any night court denizen, member of the bar or not, would know not to make an overtly prejudicial statement like that of the Great Pretender. He's not just a novice, he's a fool.