Appeals Court Rules that U.S. Military Will Maintain Majority Rule Jury Decisions

This is something that many civilians don’t understand that a military jury just needs a majority to convict someone. This makes the threshold of convictions easier:

A Germany-based military judge’s ruling that a unanimous guilty verdict was required to convict an Army officer facing sexual assault charges was rejected by the service’s top appeals court.

Lt. Col. Andrew Dial initially faced a court-martial in January, but proceedings were delayed after military judge Col. Charles Pritchard said that allowing a split verdict would violate Dial’s constitutional rights.

Prosecutors challenged that decision before the Army Court of Criminal Appeals, arguing that Pritchard’s ruling was based on faulty reasoning. 

In a June decision, the appeals court concurred, saying it was not persuaded by the argument that because military and civilian court procedures are generally similar, military defendants are “similarly situated” to civilian counterparts.

“Rather, we adhere to the well-established view that ‘the military is a specialized society separate from civilian society’ which has, by necessity, developed laws and traditions of its own during its long history,” the court said.

Stars & Stripes

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