And so it would begin. It may be true that some trial attorneys can remember every closing argument. I cannot. But I do remember many—and I remember my hours of preparation, the tortured phrasings, and the rehearsals. I remember the recognition that I had little time to adjust my planned argument after the facts that actually came out at trial didn’t quite match the eloquent argument I had prepared.

On 24 July 2021, as the Honorary Regimental Colonel of the Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps, I will proudly drink a toast to the 40th anniversary of the men and women of the 96th Basic Course of the JAG School where I started my career as an Army lawyer. Over the years, and even now as a retired judge advocate (JA), I am constantly amazed at how service in the JAG Corps produces so many lifelong friendships that endure the test of time, professional association, and geography.

News & Notes 2021 Issue 3

While every member of the Corps knows that the Deputy Judge Advocate General is the No. 2 lawyer in the organization, few know the history of this important position, much less that it did not exist in its present form until after World War II.

As a lifelong Raiders fan, I am intimately familiar with the potential hazards of excessive loyalty to a team. I grew up in northern California when the Oakland Raiders were one of the most dominant teams in the National Football League. I remained loyal to them when they moved to Los Angeles and won their third Super Bowl in eight years.

It beats the hell out of me . . . why everyone tries so hard to show that the prosecution were [sic] insidious, underhanded, unethical, immoral and God knows what monsters, that unfairly convicted a group of whiskerless Sunday school boys. What motivates you authors? I think that my staff did a hell of a great job.

The implementation of the Military Justice Act of 2016 (MJA 2016) brought with it the first completely new court-martial forum in over fifty years: the judge-alone special court-martial (JA-SPCM).

A Texas civilian plaintiff’s attorney glares at the witness and questions, “If you had done your job as a commander, Mrs. Giffa would be alive today, wouldn’t she, Major Miller?” In federal civil court in Austin, Texas, a former company commander sits on the stand for hours, defending her response to a domestic violence (DV) incident years earlier between a Soldier and his spouse.

Just as you start to get comfortable as a newly-minted judge advocate (JA) practicing administrative law, your deputy staff judge advocate calls you into their office.

You have less than forty-eight hours in theater when you receive your first request for a Foreign Excess Personal Property (FEPP) legal opine. Barely knowing how to spell FEPP, you crack open the excel spreadsheet and see dollar signs with lots of commas.

Rehearings, new trials, other trials (per Rule for Courts-Martial 810), and remands often have unique challenges that require particularized experience and expertise. Establishing a single location for the prosecution and defense of these cases enables the Army to maximize opportunities to develop and maintain this critical expertise.

The military’s new statute criminalizing “revenge porn” is a well-intended law that suffers from serious flaws and requires careful revision. Congress intended the statute, Article 117a, Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), to prohibit and punish the unauthorized distribution of sexual images without the consent of the individuals depicted in the images.

You and YOU ALONE are in charge of what happens in this story. There are dangers, choices, adventures, and consequences. YOU must use all of your numerous talents and much of your enormous intelligence. The wrong decision could end in disaster—even death. But don’t despair. At any time, YOU can go back and make another choice, alter the path of your story, and change its result.

[I]t will be sufficient that perfect Uniformity should be established throughout the Continent, and pervade, as far as possible, every Corps, whether of standing Troops or Militia . . . [and] that Congress should employ some able hand, to digest a Code of Military Rules and regulations, calculated immediately for the Militia and other Troops of the United States.

On 1 July 2020, The Judge Advocate General (TJAG) directed the Leadership Center, housed within the Legal Center at The Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School (TJAGLCS), to organize an operational planning team (OPT) to assess institutional mentorship across the Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps.