Military Sexual Assault (Article 120)
Sexual assault in the military is a regularly-evolving set of laws. Prior to 2007, the laws remained relatively unchanged, but victim-advocacy groups and lawmakers updated Article 120 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice to reflect current perceptions of the crimes and victim rights.
As a result, the laws make it tougher to fight allegations of sexual assault at court-martial and obtain a Not Guilty verdict at court-martial. Essentially, they lower the bar for those seeking to put alleged rapists and sexual assaulters in jail.
In addition to changed laws, many of the services now assign specially-trained prosecutors to these cases. Called Special Victim Prosecutors (SVPs), they specialize in prosecuting these cases. Normally, one general-purpose Trial Counsel is also assigned to the case. This means that the prosecution team consists of no less than 2 prosecutors attempting to secure a conviction against the accused. Meanwhile, most Trial Defense shops are only able to assign one defense attorney to each case.
Consider the odds, and consider your future.
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