One of the persistent criticisms of the Army's court-martial system, heard after World War I and being heard again at the present time, is that it fails to achieve "equal justice under law." The complaint is not so much that innocent men are convicted and punished although that can and occasionally does happen in any system of law-but rather that one soldier who is guilty of misconduct is treated differently than another soldier whose guilt is equal.
This is no small indictment. That only guilty men should be convicted in any court of justice goes without saying; but a system that is content with seeking that result falls short of even the most elementary ideals of criminal jurisprudence. If one man receives life imprisonment for an offense for which another man receives a mere reprimand, or if one man is punished more severely for a minor crime than another is for a major crime, we may legitimately raise the question of whether justice is being achieved. It is the thesis of this article that the complaint is justified, and that the basis for it is the granting of too much unfettered judicial power to commanding officers.
