Equal Justice For United States Military Personnel Legislation - 109th Congress

109th Congress

• H.R. 1364 Equal Justice for Our Military Personnel Act, 2005, 109th Congress (referred to committee—did not pass)

On April 23, 2004, the House Armed Services Committee sent a bipartisan letter, written by Reps. Davis (D-Calif.) and John Michael McHugh (R-NY), to The Pentagon asking for feedback on MacLean's proposal. Then-Principal Deputy General Counsel Daniel J. Dell'Orto wrote to lawmakers opposing MacLean's proposal of Supreme Court access for service members. According to the Los Angeles Daily Journal, Dell'Orto stated that changing the law and giving service members greater Supreme Court access would only serve to burden the nation's highest court. Rep. Davis first introduced the Equal Justice for Our Military Act on March 17, 2005, in the 109th Congress. After its introduction the bill was opposed by the Bush administration through then-Department of Defense General Counsel William J. Haynes, II. Haynes wrote to Congress in opposition stating "there is no apparent justification to modify the current review process, thereby increasing the burden upon the Supreme Court and counsel to address the myriad of matters that would be encountered with expanded certiorari jurisdiction." The bill failed in the 109th Congress.

At the behest of MacLean, Legislative Research Inc. ("LRI"), based in California, developed two decades of military justice statistics to present to Congress. LRI completed its study in March 2006. In August 2006, the American Bar Association ("ABA") issued a report and unanimously passed a resolution urging Congress to correct the law and permit U.S. armed forces members equal access to the Supreme Court. The ABA report references military justice statistics compiled as a direct result of MacLean's work on this issue noting that: "CAAF denies petitions for grant of review and petitions for relief far more often than it grants them. While there is significant variation from year to year, in 2004-05, petitions for review were denied in 78.3 percent (581) of the cases and granted in 19.54 percent (145) of the cases. Petitions for grants of extraordinary relief were denied in 70.45 percent (31) of the cases and granted in 4.55 percent (2) of the cases. Equally sobering, the statistical compilation reveals that during the same time-period, there were 7,564 court-martial convictions and only 799 petitions for grant of review granted by CAAF."