La sociedad del conocimiento

Dr. David Lisak, a guest instructor at the Army’s advance sexual assault training course, testified about the need to train investigators and judge advocates because of the unique nature of sexual offenses:

[T]he men and women in the military’s investigative agencies in the JAG Corps, must receive the specialized training that is required to competently handle non- stranger rape cases. These cases are marked by complexities and challenges unseen in any other type of violent crime, and these challenges can and very often still do derail these cases and prevent them from being successfully prosecuted. The specialized training should include interviewing skills that increase trust and disclosure in victims and that do not intimidate and shut down victims, skills that incorporate neuroscience research on the impact of trauma on memory formation and memory retrieval, recognition of the unique evidence needed to effectively prosecute sexual assault cases in which the issue of consent will be central, in-depth training on victim privacy issues and ways to safeguard victims from undue trampling of their privacy rights. Some of this advanced training is already under way, but it must become more widespread and crucially, it must be sustained.2

Investigator Training and Coordination

Although all Services operate under the common standard of the UCMJ, historically each Service developed its own training for investigators for all categories of crime, including sexual assaults.3 _{Due to the growing awareness in recent years of the pervasive problem of sexual}

1 _{National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2013, Pub. L. No. 112-239, 126 Stat. 1632 § 576.} 2 _{Lisak testimony, Briefing Transcript, at 105-6.}

3 _{GAO, MILITARY JUSTICE:OVERSIGHT AND BETTER COLLABORATION NEEDED FOR SEXUAL ASSAULT}

INVESTIGATIONS AND ADJUDICATIONS 18 (2011), available athttp://www.gao.gov/new.items/d11579.pdf

(cont'd)

assaults attempted or perpetrated on military installations, DoD has established a common policy objective to achieve consistency across the Services, including training for investigators.4

In 2012, an evaluation by the DoD’s Inspector General revealed that the Services’ Military Criminal Investigation Organizations (MCIOs)5 _{did not have common, minimum standards for} improved basic, refresher, or advanced sexual assault investigative training.6 _{Although the} MCIOs addressed the required topics, the evaluation found that the number of hours varied, and refresher training could be improved by measurement guidelines.

Judge Advocate Training

Every Service’s Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps includes attorneys responsible for both prosecuting and defending military Service members. While Service members may be represented by private defense counsel instead of a judge advocate, the prosecutor must be a member of the JAG Corps.

The Army’s Military Police School administers a course for Criminal Investigators and for judge advocates from all the Services, as well as the Coast Guard.7 _{In the Navy, the JAG Corps}

________________________ (cont'd from previous page)

(providing examples of different military divisions’ training such as the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) sending 42 investigators to an advanced family and sexual violence training course in FY 2010, the Naval Justice School offering courses for prosecutors handling complex sexual assault cases, and the Army JAG conducting seven conferences led by experts who trained prosecutors on litigation of sexual assault cases).

4

See DODINSTRUCTION 5505.18,INVESTIGATION OF ADULT SEXUAL ASSAULT IN THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE (Jan. 25, 2013, Incorporating Change 1, May 1, 2013), available at

http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/pdf/550518p.pdf; GAO,MILITARY JUSTICE:OVERSIGHT AND BETTER COLLABORATION NEEDED FOR SEXUAL ASSAULT INVESTIGATIONS AND ADJUDICATIONS,supra note 3, at 17-18. As early as 2008, the DoD identified investigator training and resourcing, trial counsel training and resourcing, and commander training as priorities in SAPR programming. See DEP’T OF DEFENSE FISCAL YEAR 2009ANNUAL REPORT ON SEXUAL ASSAULT IN THE MILITARY 13 (2010) [hereinafter DoD FY09 Annual Report on Sexual Assault], available at http://www.sapr.mil/public/docs/reports/fy09_annual_report.pdf.

5 _{The MCIOs consist of the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command (CID), the NCIS, and the Air Force}

Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI). DODINSTRUCTION 5505.3, INITIATION OF INVESTIGATIONS BY DEFENSE CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIVE ORGANIZATIONS (June 21, 2002, replaced by DoD Instruction 5505.03 on Mar. 24, 2011), available athttp://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/pdf/550503p.pdf.

6_{DoD OIG Response to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights’ Interrogatory 137. The Inspector General}

recommended a working group be tasked with developing such minimum guidelines, but the Army Commander of CID opposed the recommendation for a working group to review periodic refresher sexual assault investigation training to establish common criteria and minimum requirements to refine methods for measuring effectiveness. DOD,OIG,EVALUATION OF THE MILITARY CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIVE ORGANIZATIONS’SEXUAL ASSAULT INVESTIGATION TRAINING i (2013), available athttp://www.dodig.mil/pubs/documents/DODIG-2013-043.pdf.pdf.

7 _{In addition, Army CID sends its senior sexual assault investigators to an annual conference to receive continuing}

training and expertise in sexual assault investigations. See Dep’t of the Army Response to the U.S. Commission on

trains judge advocates through a Military Justice Litigation Career Track.8 _{By creating a}

specialized group of litigators who are assigned to “progressive . . . litigation billets,” Navy JAG Corps ensured this group of attorneys would remain sharp in developing and maintaining military justice litigation skills.9 _{In January of 2012, the Marine Corps held two training events} for JAG Corps prosecutors at Marine Corps bases in the Pacific region.10