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Criminal Justice vs. Military Justice
The civilian criminal justice system exists to serve several purposes including obtaining justice for victims, punishing wrongdoers, and deterring future wrongs, but also providing due process of law to those accused of wrongdoing, thus ensuring fairness in the process. In this system, there are many players who all play different roles in the process and are all intended to be impartial (save for the attorney advocates working on behalf of the accused). For example, a prosecutor is intended to be impartial and only bring cases where there is evidence to convict the accused or a jury of the accused’s peers who are supposed to hear evidence and then vote whether or not to convict the accused. The investigating officers who collect evidence of crimes are also intended to be impartial. For criminal matters, the accused is also guaranteed counsel, per the Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the United States Constitution. In theory, these aspects of the criminal justice system exist to serve the goals of the criminal justice system, including justice and fairness. In practice, issues arise at all levels of the criminal justice system that prevent the system from meeting its goals, and many articles have been written on that topic and will not be discussed here. But the system’s structure is such that when everything works as it is supposed to, victims and accused are protected. This blog post will address the similarities and differences between aspects of the civilian criminal justice system and the military justice system.
The justice system that governs the military is separate and distinct from the civilian criminal justice system. The Uniform Code of Military Justice is codified at Title 10 Sections 801 to 940 and Title 14 Sections 508 and 509 of the United States Code and governs all aspects of criminal behavior by service members along with other kinds of misconduct by service members that does not have a civilian analog such as dereliction of duty, failure to follow a lawful order, or disrespect.
https://mvets.law.gmu.edu/2019/01/15/criminal-justice-vs-military-justice/