Gillibrand loses bid to strip military sex assault cases from chain of command

Source: NBC

The Senate’s staunchest advocate for transferring military rape cases to independent prosecutors to contain a rape epidemic in the ranks said Wednesday she was distressed by the rejection of her proposal, saying, "The victims’ voices aren’t being heard."

“To reverse this crisis, I do not believe it will be enough if we do not seize the opportunity and embrace the kind of systemic reform that will truly increase accountability," said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., during a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee to consider amendments to the proposed fiscal 2014 military budget.


However, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., on Wednesday replaced Gillibrand’s amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act of 2014 with his own plan: If unit commanders decide not to prosecute service members for alleged sex assaults, those cases would be required to undergo "an independent review by the next higher level of the chain of command." Further, Levin's amendment would make it a crime for service members to retaliate against victims who claim they were sexually assaulted.


Navy veteran Trina McDonald, who said she survived three rapes while serving in Alaska in 1989, called Levin's move "proposterous." In an interview Wednesday with NBC News, she predicted the military's sex-assault crisis will deepen because Gillibrand's plan was spiked and replaced by Levin's amendment.

Read more: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06/12/18920746-gillibrand-loses-bid-to-strip-military-sex-assault-cases-from-chain-of-command#comments

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Hmmm. "an independent review by the next higher level of the chain of command."

And the *uck stops there. Right.