Area Legal Jurisdiction--A Cure Worse than the Illness?
Abstract
Within USAREUR, combat arms restationing decisions over the years together with the correlative peacetime support plans developed by combat support and service support units have resulted in the breakup and dispersion of support units throughout the theater -- squads separated from platoons, platoons from companies, companies from battalions, and battalions from their parent brigades. Notwithstanding this physical separation, virtually all traditional comand functions applicable to these units have essentially remained in straight command channels, the only major exception being the administration of military justice which is currently administered strictly on a geographical area basis with essentially the nearest company and battalion commanders exercising exclusive legal jurisdiction over all soldiers performing duties within their respective areas of responsibility. The advocates of this arrangement presume both fair and efficient justice. In fact, administration is typically cumbersome, soldiers and commanders are frustrated and disillusioned with the process, and the resultant decoupling of the actual chain-of-command's ability go both reward and punish its soldiers as deemed appropriate all point to an urgent need to reexamine and reshape the current area legal jurisdiction system in USAREUR. The authority to administer nonjudicial punishment and to impose associated administrative sanctions must be returned to the chain-of-command, regardless of unit dispersion. The area legal jurisdiction apparatus should remain in place, but only to administer to criminal behavior and courts-martial within the USAREUR military communities.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Apr 15, 1985
- Accession Number
- ADA157128
Entities
People
- R. D. Duffie
Organizations
- United States Army War College