March 13, 2001
COMMISSION ON THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY
OF THE UNIFORM CODE OF MILITARY JUSTICE
(The Cox Commission)
Statement of James F. McKeown
Judge Cox and Members of the Commission:
My name is James McKeown, and I am the President of The Bar Association of the District of Columbia. BADC is the second oldest voluntary bar association formed in the United States, and has been actively involved in developments in the law since its founding in 1871.
BADC views the fair administration of military justice to be a pivotal national security concern, due to the effect of this system on morale and discipline within the armed forces. The modern military justice system, established with the enactment of the Uniform Code of Military Justice in 1950, has been changed many times since its beginning, but only twice as a result of congressional hearings and dedicated UCMJ legislation, in 1968 and 1983. The numerous other statutory changes to the system have generally been incorporated within other legislation, usually the annual Department of Defense authorization bills. In addition, the system has been substantially modified through amendments to the Manual for Courts-Martial, usually with no review in Congress or by entities outside the government.
These various changes have left a military justice system very different from that enacted in 1950. During these 50 years, there have been few comprehensive assessments of the system, and none that we are aware of since the early 1970's. To our knowledge, this Commission is the first attempt by an entity outside the government to do a comprehensive assessment of the system since the review conducted by the NAACP in 1971. Much has happened in the world and in this justice system in the three decades since its most recent comprehensive review, and in our view the study you are undertaking is much needed.
BADC is pleased to be able to participate and to provide to the Commission the perspective of our bar association. BADC has adopted a resolution supporting the work of the Commission, and authorizing the submission of the written comments and oral testimony we present today. We hope the work of this Commission will lead to further studies and to congressional hearings, and we look forward to playing a role in those further efforts.
We are grateful for the opportunity to appear before you today, and look forward to providing follow-on comments should the Commission desire them. I will now turn to Phil Cave, co-chair of BADC's Military Law Committee, and Kevin Barry, former co-chair of that committee, to give you an overview of our written comments, which are in two parts: first a detailed statement of the general principles which we believe should guide this Commission, and secondly our specific comments on the list of topics on which the Commission has requested comments.