{"id":94403,"date":"2020-01-13T15:57:17","date_gmt":"2020-01-13T19:57:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=94403"},"modified":"2020-01-13T16:20:29","modified_gmt":"2020-01-13T20:20:29","slug":"94403","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=94403","title":{"rendered":"Stung by string of scandals, the sea service urges legal reforms"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
\nSpecial Warfare Operator Chief Edward \u201cEddie\u201d Gallagher, left, and his wife Andrea hug after leaving the Naval Base San Diego courthouse after a July court-martial plagued by allegations of police and prosecutorial misconduct. In the wake of the Gallagher case, senior Navy leaders sparked a probe into the Navy’s legal community. (Gregory Bull\/AP)<\/em><\/p>\n

After a string of botched Navy legal incidents including illegal wiretapping, poor legal advice provided to Commanders and unlawful command influence has shaken confidence in the Navy’s legal system, an investigation was ordered by Ex-Secretary of the Navy Richard Spencer.<\/p>\n

The Vice Chief of Naval Operations, Robert P. Burke, praised the first major review of the sea service\u2019s legal community in nearly a decade as \u201cthorough.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s comprehensive,” he said. “It\u2019s very transparent and it speaks for itself\u201d which of course means nothing.<\/p>\n

The report falls back on obvious findings that the JAG Corps lacks a culture of grading its own performance and needs better training and professional development.<\/p>\n

By Courtney Mabeus<\/strong><\/p>\n

The blue ribbon panel drafting the review recommended that the Navy\u2019s lawyer leadership issue governing principals to buttress JAG officers\u2019 roles as naval officers and attorneys, as well as fostering a climate of \u201ccontinuous improvement.\u201d<\/p>\n

The JAG Corps \u201cneeds to embrace a learning culture,\u201d according to the report.<\/p>\n

\u201cNavy judge advocates are members of two honorable professions: the profession of arms and the profession of law. As uniformed attorneys, judge advocates support the profession of arms by enhancing personnel and unit readiness, ensuring good order and discipline, and providing sound legal advice in support of the commanders and the units they serve. A clearer understanding of Navy culture and values, and a judge advocate\u2019s role as both a Naval officer and attorney, is required and must be continually reinforced throughout the community,\u201d the panel wrote.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<\/p>\n

Washington, D.C.-based attorney David P. Sheldon read the report Friday. He had a unique perch on two of the examples of unlawful command influence it highlighted.<\/p>\n

He was the winning attorney in the appeal of Senior Chief Special Warfare Operator Keith E. Barry, who saw his sexual assault conviction overturned as a result of unlawful command influence partly blamed on ex-Navy JAG Vice Adm. Crawford.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nCmdr. Matt Szoka, left, greets Judge Advocate General, Vice Admiral James W. Crawford III, during a tour of Naval Air Facility Atsugi on June 21, 2017. (Navy)<\/p>\n

<\/em>
\nAnd he represented Lt. Natalie Combs, a junior officer who was sent to court-martial along with Benson in the Fitz case.<\/p>\n

Nine months ago, Sheldon was awaiting a ruling on his motion to dismiss her case for UCI when the Navy announced military prosecutors were abandoning their efforts against both Combs and Benson.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, a Navy board of inquiry also ruled unanimously to retain Combs in the sea service.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sheldon told the Navy Times the panel\u2019s report “will be entirely meaningless if the Navy (Judge Advocate General\u2019s Corps) does not provide the resources to implement the recommended changes.”<\/p>\n

Read the rest here: Navy Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Special Warfare Operator Chief Edward \u201cEddie\u201d Gallagher, left, and his wife Andrea hug after leaving the … Stung by string of scandals, the sea service urges legal reforms<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":657,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,119],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-94403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal","category-navy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/657"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=94403"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94403\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94409,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94403\/revisions\/94409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=94403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=94403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=94403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}