{"id":18822,"date":"2019-12-08T18:37:18","date_gmt":"2019-12-08T18:37:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=18822"},"modified":"2019-12-10T07:42:08","modified_gmt":"2019-12-10T07:42:08","slug":"why-the-us-military-usually-punishes-misconduct-but-police-often-close-ranks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/why-the-us-military-usually-punishes-misconduct-but-police-often-close-ranks\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the US military usually punishes misconduct but police often close ranks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dwight Stirling<\/a>, University of Southern California<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Many U.S. military members publicly disavowed President Trump\u2019s decision to pardon<\/a> Edward Gallagher, the former SEAL commando convicted of killing a teenage detainee in Iraq in 2017.<\/p>\n

Gallagher\u2019s alleged war crimes were nearly universally condemned up the chain of command, from enlisted men to Navy Secretary Richard Spencer<\/a>. Indeed, it was Gallagher\u2019s SEAL colleagues<\/a> who reported the former commando\u2019s actions.<\/p>\n

This insistence on holding fellow service members accountable for bad behavior sharply differentiates the military from the police. <\/p>\n

When police are revealed to have killed an unarmed suspect or used excessive force during arrest, police generally defend those actions<\/a>. Cops who report wrongdoing are routinely ostracized as \u201crats\u201d and denied promotions, according to a 1998 Human Rights Watch study<\/a>. Researchers identify this so-called \u201cblue wall of silence<\/a>\u201d \u2013 the refusal to \u201csnitch\u201d on other officers \u2013 as a defining feature of U.S. cop culture<\/a> today.<\/p>\n

Yet both soldiers and police officers put their lives on the line for their team every day. So what explains these two armed forces\u2019 divergent attitudes toward bad behavior?<\/p>\n

Military ethics<\/h2>\n

As a military lawyer and scholar<\/a>, I\u2019ve studied this unique aspect of American military ethics. <\/p>\n

U.S. military culture stresses organizational, rather than personal, loyalty. When Gallagher\u2019s SEAL colleagues reported him, they were doing what Navy SEALs are taught to do: They put the good of the institution before the individual. <\/p>\n

And the pride Marines famously feel<\/a>, for instance, comes from being part of this well-respected corps. Personal relationships with other Marines are of secondary importance. <\/p>\n

Accountability for individual misdeeds is written into U.S. military law. Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, culpability for criminal conduct is not avoided simply because a superior ordered<\/a> a criminal act to be committed. Only lawful orders are to be followed.<\/p>\n

\n \"\"<\/a>
\n The former Navy SEAL Edward Gallagher, right, Aug. 1, 2019.<\/span>
\n AP Photo\/Gregory Bull,<\/a><\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cA soldier is reasoning agent,\u201d a military court explained in the 1991 case U.S. v. Kinder<\/a>, in which a soldier who killed a civilian was convicted of murder on the grounds that his superior\u2019s order to do so was obviously illegal and should have been reported. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a fallacy of widespread consumption that a soldier is required to do everything a superior officers tells him to do,\u201d the ruling concluded, referencing the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals<\/a> after World War II.<\/p>\n

Playing politics<\/h2>\n

Not every soldier follows the rules, of course. The U.S. military has covered up atrocities. <\/p>\n

The most notorious of these cases include the 1968 My Lai massacre<\/a> in Vietnam, in which women and children were killed. In 2003, U.S. soldiers badly mistreated detainees at Iraq\u2019s Abu Ghraib prison<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But deeply ingrained military ethics generally make military members wary of the kind of group think<\/a> that holds up the \u201cblue wall of silence\u201d in police departments. <\/p>\n

The police detective Frank Serpico<\/a> made the power of the blue wall infamous. While working for the NYPD in the 1960s, Serpico observed his colleagues running racketeering operations and punching suspects for fun. When he brought the corruption to light, he was shot in the face in a setup orchestrated by fellow officers. <\/p>\n

This ethic is alive and well today, as former Baltimore detective Joe Crystal learned in 2011. Crystal was a rising star in the Baltimore police department. But after telling his superiors that a fellow officer brutally beat<\/a> a handcuffed suspect, he was demoted, threatened and harassed until he quit. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf you snitch, your career is done,\u201d he was told<\/a>, according to a 2011 lawsuit Crystal filed against the department for failing to protect him from retaliation. <\/p>\n

Police reluctance to report a fellow officer stems from the politicization<\/a> of police brutality incidents and the widespread perception among police that nobody outside law enforcement understands their dangerous jobs<\/a>, research shows<\/a>. Frustrated at being judged by civilians and public officials who don\u2019t face the life-and-death decisions they do, cops tend to close ranks when things go wrong<\/a>, police monitors find. <\/p>\n

No political interference<\/h2>\n

The military is also wary of political interference in military matters. That\u2019s why it takes internal justice seriously.<\/p>\n

The Department of Defense is the only governmental organization allowed to operate its own internal criminal justice system \u2013 a privilege as remarkable as it is fragile. <\/p>\n

The civilian judiciary has long been skeptical of the military\u2019s judicial system. The courts used to worry about due process, particularly the ability of military commanders to improperly influence<\/a> the outcome of trials. In 1969, the Supreme Court severely restricted<\/a> the jurisdiction of military courts. <\/p>\n

\u201cCourts-martial as an institution are singularly inept in dealing with the subtleties of constitutional law,\u201d the court wrote<\/a> in O’Callahan v. Parker. <\/p>\n

That ruling limited the military justice system to handling purely military offenses, such as abandoning their post or behaving insubordinately. Serious allegations like murder and rape had to be tried in civilian courts. <\/p>\n

After Congress and the American Bar Association<\/a> made significant structural changes<\/a> to strengthen due process in the military, the Supreme Court in 1987 restored the jurisdiction of the courts-martial<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Today, military judicial proceedings are supposed to be free from political interference, even by the commander-in-chief<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\n \"\"<\/a>
\n A military courthouse at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, in Washington state.<\/span>
\n AP Photo\/Ted S. Warren<\/a><\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Undue influence<\/h2>\n

When Trump turned Gallagher\u2019s court-martial earlier this year into a media spectacle<\/a> by tweeting<\/a> his support for the former commando, he almost certainly influenced the outcome of the trial. Gallagher was acquitted of all but one charge and sentenced to time served. <\/p>\n

\u201cGlad I could help,\u201d the president later tweeted<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The president also punished<\/a> the prosecutors who handled Gallagher\u2019s court-martial, revoking their service medals.<\/p>\n

When I was the chief of military justice for the California National Guard, I tried dozens of courts-martials, convicting soldiers for larceny, battery and rape. <\/p>\n

I could usually get soldiers to level with me, even when telling the truth meant revealing the malfeasance of friends or superiors. They had confidence in the integrity of the military\u2019s legal system, I felt \u2013 an understanding that they would be safe if they did the right thing. <\/p>\n

In the post-Gallagher era, is that still true? Or will a \u201ccamouflage wall of silence\u201d rise?<\/p>\n

[ Deep knowledge, daily.<\/em> Sign up for The Conversation\u2019s newsletter<\/a>. ]\"The<\/p>\n

Dwight Stirling<\/a>, Lecturer in Law, University of Southern California<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dwight Stirling, University of Southern California Many U.S. military members publicly disavowed President Trump\u2019s decision to pardon Edward Gallagher, the former SEAL commando convicted of killing a teenage detainee in Iraq in 2017. Gallagher\u2019s alleged war crimes were nearly universally condemned up the chain of command, from enlisted men to Navy Secretary Richard Spencer. Indeed, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":18823,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[196,7350,3823,6610,6500,2873],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18822"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18822"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18822\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18824,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18822\/revisions\/18824"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}