Seven months ago, former Maryland National Guard soldier Derrick Miller was serving time for murder. Today he is a free man working on behalf of soldiers to reform the military justice system he believes wrongly imprisoned him.
Miller was convicted of premeditated murder in 2011 for shooting a suspected enemy fighter during an interrogation in Afghanistan. A proper investigation would have cleared him, said Miller, who gained bipartisan support from Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert and Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings. Miller was paroled on May 20, 2019. Instead of returning to a quiet life, the former soldier feels he has a duty to help protect young troops who do not understand their rights.
“They have no clue at all. Unless you are going into [the Judge Advocate General Corps], then you already have a law degree, and you semi-understand what your rights are,” Miller told the Washington Examiner.
Miller works with the Justice for Warriors caucus, which was founded by Gohmert and Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter to help troops who “have been unfairly treated by the military justice system.”
The Justice for Warriors caucus wants to craft legislation that will protect the rights of soldiers. Although it has not yet voted on an official platform, countering “undue command influence” — when a commander uses his rank to direct a case unfairly — will be a priority in reforming the Uniform Code of Military Justice, advocates said.
“The UCMJ is not a system that demands accountability, but rather it encourages and rewards prosecutorial misconduct,” Republican Rep. Paul Gosar, a caucus member, told the Washington Examiner. “From denying access to witnesses to withholding exculpatory evidence, commanders have and continue to tilt the scales of justice in favor of the prosecution in case after case.”
The current defense bill fails to counter undue command influence, Miller said, by leaving too much power in the hands of commanders, since they would decide whether a case should be overturned because of their own influence.
“That is the type of stuff that drives me crazy, and that is one of the reasons Congressman Gohmert voted no for the NDAA,” Miller said, referring to the National Defense Authorization Act.
Phillip Stackhouse, a military law attorney who has worked on several high profile cases, said he had seen instances of a commander stacking a jury against a defendant, noting the system “has room for improvement.”
A potential solution to jury stacking, Miller explained, would be to have reservists or National Guard members serve as jury members. But retired Col. Don Christensen, the Air Force’s chief prosecutor, said claims of undue command influence are overblown.
“In the 23 years that I served, I never really saw any kind of pressure from command to prosecute somebody that you thought was innocent,” Christensen told the Washington Examiner. “That just didn’t happen.”
The overall number of courts-martial have gone down from 10,000 to fewer than 2,000 over the last 30 years, Christensen said.
The caucus also wants any court-martial addressing the equivalent of a felony to be eligible for petition before the Supreme Court and to expedite delayed military cases through the federal courts.
Some observers feel these efforts are misguided or politically motivated. Kris Goldsmith, a veteran who advocates on behalf of troops with legal troubles, said he believes the caucus is focusing on high-profile cases for political gain, while the hundreds of thousands of vets with lesser charges are forgotten.
“It has nothing to do with justice, it has nothing to do with military service or honoring the flag, or uniform, or any of these things that these bad faith politicians say it’s about,” Goldsmith told the Washington Examiner. “All it’s about is them getting to stand on a stage next to somebody in military uniform and say they saved the day. Context be damned.”
Miller, a Maryland native, believes otherwise. In his case, he said, investigators did not collect evidence of the gun and body. If they had done so, Miller said, he might have been cleared. He mentioned the cases of Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher and former Army lieutenant Clint Lorance as “clear examples of injustice in the military” that also should have been averted.
The caucus will wait until next year to draft legislation, as this year’s version has already been voted on by the House and Senate.
