Gillibrand: Schumer should bring military sexual assault bill to floor

Gillibrand’s bill would remove the decision to prosecute major crimes like sexual assault and murder from military commanders, instead moving it to military prosecutors. She said that while she couldn’t speak to why Reed is blocking the bill, she disagreed with his stance on narrowing the bill to apply only to sex crimes.

“You’re going to create one set of justice for one set of plaintiffs and defendants and the rest for everybody else,” Gillibrand said. “It’s not fair.”

The New York senator also brought up biases in the current system, including racial prejudice and biases against the victims.

“To take biases out of the system across the board, you need a trained military prosecutor to make these decisions about whether it should go to trial,” she said. “That takes it out of the chain of command. The chain of command has bias because they may know the perpetrator, the accused. They may know the survivor.”

Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.), chair of House Armed Services’ subcommittee on military personnel, is sponsoring similar legislation in the House.

Source:Politico