Military sexual assault; Military Justice Improvement Act should be approved as part of defense authorization bill, Grassley says
Please note: Sen. Chuck Grassley is pushing for the Senate to approve the Military Justice Improvement Act, which would improve the system for handling sexual assault. Sen. Grassley and his fellow supporters hope the bill will be considered as an amendment to the pending defense authorization bill. In a speech on the Senate floor, Sen. Grassley said, “How many more lives need to be ruined before we are ready to take bold action? If sexual assault isn’t prosecuted, predators will remain in the military and that results in a perception that sexual assault is tolerated in the military culture. That destroys morale and it destroys lives. The men and women who have volunteered to place their lives on the line deserve better.”
The full speech follows here.
Floor Statement of Sen. Chuck Grassley on the Military Justice Improvement Act, Delivered Thursday, June 9, 2016
I am proud to stand once again with Senator Gillibrand in support of the Military Justice Improvement Act.
Two years ago, Congress enacted a number of common sense reforms as part of the National Defense Authorization Act.
These changes were mostly good, common sense measures and I supported them.
However, they were not sufficient.
As I said at the time, we are past the point of tinkering with the current system and hoping that does the trick.
I urged the Senate at that time to support bold action that would make sexual assault in the military a thing of the past.
Unfortunately, those of us arguing for the Military Justice Improvement Act did not prevail.
We were told to wait and see if the reforms that were included would work, while leaving in place the current military justice system.
Well, we’ve had time to see if things have changed.
The rate of sexual assault in the military is unchanged.
42% of service member survivors who reported retaliation were encouraged to drop the issue by their supervisor, or someone else in their chain of command.
A majority of service member survivors indicated that they were NOT satisfied with the official actions taken against the alleged perpetrator.
3 out of 4 survivors lack sufficient confidence in the military justice system to report the crime.
In fact, there has been a DECREASE in the percentage of survivors willing to make an unrestricted report of sexual assault.
Two years ago, when military leaders were arguing against the reforms that Senator Gillibrand and I and others were advocating, Congress was provided with data from military sexual assault cases that we now know was very misleading.
We were told that military commanders were taking cases that were “declined” by civilian prosecutors.
The implication was clear: The military system results in prosecutions that civilian prosecutors turn down.
An independent report by Protect our Defenders and reporting by the Associated Press shows that there was no evidence the military was taking cases that civilian prosecutors would not take.
When Senator Gillibrand and I wrote to the President asking for an independent investigation of how this misleading information was allowed to be presented to Congress, we received a response from Secretary Carter saying it was all a misunderstanding.
The Secretary’s response went into a semantic discussion of the meaning of certain terms.
Apparently in the military justice system, when a civilian prosecutor agrees to defer to the jurisdiction of the military to prosecute a case, it is listed as a “declination”.
Such a situation is very different from a civilian prosecutor refusing to prosecute a case.
If the military asks the civilian prosecutor to defer to the military’s jurisdiction, or it is done by mutual agreement, it is not a case of a civilian prosecutor turning down a prosecution.
As I said, a review of the cases used to back up the DoD’s claims found no evidence that civilian prosecutors had refused prosecutions.
Nevertheless, that was the clear implication of the statistics supplied to Congress by the Pentagon.
The response to our letter to President Obama claimed the authors of that review just didn’t understand the meaning of the term “declined” as it is used in the military justice system.
The reality is that the information the Pentagon provided to Congress was presented in a very misleading way.
When military leaders claimed that civilian prosecutors had declined to prosecute cases that the military then prosecuted, would it have had the same impact if they added a footnote saying that in this context, declined doesn’t really mean declined?
So to summarize, the reforms we were told would reduce military sexual assault haven’t worked.
And a chief rationale for opposing our reform of the military justice system was based on very misleading data.
How many more lives need to be ruined before we are ready to take bold action?
If sexual assault isn’t prosecuted, predators will remain in the military and that results in a perception that sexual assault is tolerated in the military culture.
That destroys morale and it destroys lives.
The men and women who have volunteered to place their lives on the line deserve better.
Taking prosecutions out of the hands of commanders and giving them to professional prosecutors who are independent of the chain of command will help ensure impartial justice for the men and women of our armed forces.
Let’s not wait any longer. Let’s get this done now.
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Working to Protect Innocent Americans from Abusive Asset Forfeiture Practices
WASHINGTON – Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and Ranking Member Patrick Leahy are working to enhance procedural protections for property owners whose assets are seized by the federal government.
The DUE PROCESS Act is the result of several months of bipartisan, bicameral discussions. The bill has already been introduced in the House of Representatives and has cleared the House Judiciary Committee.
“Asset forfeiture laws are important and valuable tools for law enforcement to gain control over assets used to further terrorism and the drug trade. But, we’ve learned that there have been excesses and that these tools are ripe for abuse,” Grassley said. “This bill is designed to protect the rights of people whose property has been seized over long periods of time without any judicial finding of criminal wrongdoing. It’s a step in the right direction to ensure that seizures happen in accordance with the law.”
“Civil asset forfeiture is an important tool for law enforcement, and I am committed to working to ensure it remains an effective one. But the many reports of abuse make it clear that improvements are needed,” Leahy said. “Roadside stops should not resemble shakedowns. Congress never intended asset forfeiture to serve as a fundraising tool. We must ensure our law enforcement officers have the resources they need, and we should appropriate those funds. And we must ensure that civil asset forfeiture laws remain consistent with our fundamental notions of due process and fair play.”
A hearing in the Judiciary Committee last year outlined several concerns associated with the program. Among the problems discovered were that the procedural protections available to property owners whose assets were seized – normally without any criminal charge, not to mention a conviction – were inadequate. Additionally, people in that position often don’t know their rights and don’t know how to proceed to challenge the seizure.
The DUE PROCESS Act:
- Extends time periods to make a challenge to seizures;
- Provides that property owners challenging seizure of assets who cannot afford lawyers will have them provided;
- Creates a hearing in which the court can explain to the person whose property was seized what their rights are;
- Codifies a new IRS practice restricting asset forfeiture in structuring cases by ensuring that forfeiture is available in structuring cases only where the failure to report large cash transfers to a bank is done in furtherance of another crime;
- Overturns a Supreme Court decision – Kaley – which concerns criminal forfeiture, where property is taken after a criminal prosecution. Under the bill, the defendant will be able to seek a hearing to show that the assets he is using to hire an attorney of his choice were not derived from the proceeds of the criminal activities he has been charged with committing.
Grassley Seeks Response from Social Media Companies on Steps to Prevent Users from Exploiting Nursing Home Residents
WASHINGTON – Sen. Chuck Grassley is asking three social media companies to outline any steps they have taken to prevent the misuse of their platforms to exploit nursing home residents. Grassley wrote to Snapchat, Facebook and Instagram, the companies identified in a news media-compiled database as having had users post photos and videos of nursing home residents in vulnerable positions.
“As technology and social media expand, we owe it to our nation’s elderly population to ensure quality nursing home care, which debasement of patients does not fulfill,” Grassley wrote. “Therefore, I would like to know more about what (the company) is doing to protect the elderly in nursing homes from those that utilize its (website and) app to perpetuate abuse.”
Grassley asked the companies to address what steps they have taken to prevent users from abusing their platforms to exploit the elderly in light of the apparent increase in the use of social media and electronic devices to record elderly residents in compromising situations, to advise on any actions they take when their website or application is used for abusive or criminal acts, and whether they have a plan in place to detect and combat the instances of elder abuse using their products.
The investigative news outlet ProPublica has documented the social media problem and specific cases around the country.
Earlier, Grassley wrote to the Justice Department, asking the agency to advise on anything it is doing to address the problem. The Justice Department says a response is forthcoming. He sought an update from the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General, which responded that it alerted all State Medicaid Fraud Control Units to be on the lookout for the problem. Grassley also wrote to and heard from the nursing home industry association, which said it will put out guidance to its members on preventing social media abuse by June 15.
Grassley is a long-time advocate for nursing home residents, including his work as then-chairman of the Senate Special Committee on Aging and later, as chairman of the Finance Committee. He points out that much nursing home care in the United States is paid for through Medicaid, a federal-state program. The nursing home inspection process also is a federal-state program. In accepting public money, nursing homes must adhere to state and federal health and safety standards. HHS is responsible for enforcing federal nursing home standards.
Grassley’s letters to Snapchat, Facebook and Instagram are posted here, here and here. His letter to the Justice Department is available here. His letter to the HHS OIG and the OIG’s response are available here and here. His letter to the nursing home industry association and its response are available here and here.
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