I spent several days this week teaching for the Marine Corps; one day with the prosecutors and one day with defense. So I definitely have been thinking about the issue of sexual assault in the military and their criminal justice response. But it’s more than just training JAGs; it’s also several items that have come across my desk in the past week, which add a layer of complexity around discussions on this issue.
The first are a series of articles published in a Seattle-area newspaper: Bureaucracy Has Blossomed in the Military’s War on Rape; Mix of Booze and Sex Can Spell Trouble for the Military; and particularly, this one: Military’s Newly Aggressive Rape Prosecution Has Pitfalls.
Juxtapose those with a trailer released for the upcoming Sundance Film Festival entry, The Invisible War, a documentary on sexual assault in the military:
Hard to reconcile such disparate views…