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- Title
MILITARY PENAL LAW: A BRIEF SURVEY OF THE 1920 REVISION OF THE ARTICLES OF WAR.
- Authors
Rigby, William C.
- Abstract
The article provides some insights into the revision of the Articles of War in Military Penal Law in the U.S. in 1920. The Ansell-Chamberlain-Johnson bill contained three proposals of radical departures, which were wholly untried and untested by experience, not only in the United States Army, but in any other army which has succeeded in maintaining good discipline. The experiment of placing such autocratic power over the courts relied upon to enforce discipline and military justice in the hands of a lawyer, or of a subordinate staff officer, has never been tried, so far in any army. The wonder is, not that defects in the system were developed under such unprecedented circumstances, but rather that the defects proved so few. On the whole it may be said (without forgetting that there were some unduly severe sentences, and some other failures) that the system worked well. A great army was quickly disciplined; and indeed raised within a few months to such a high point of discipline that, when the test came at the front, not only did the army do its duty magnificently, but the relative number of courts-martial was less than in ordinary peace times, and it proved not to be necessary to carry the death sentence into effect even a single time for a military offense.
- Subjects
UNITED States; MILITARY law; COURTS-martial &; courts of inquiry; MILITARY discipline; UNITED States armed forces; UNITED States. Army; CRIMINAL law
- Publication
Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law & Criminology, 1921, Vol 12, Issue 1, p84
- ISSN
0885-4173
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.2307/1133655