the ucmj is not the main focus of the review. >> to buy. >> thank you. mr.rphy is next. >> thank you. you mentioned that you were nervous serving as cochair. i am sure you were nervous as an 18 year-old infantryman are paratrooper. we're not going to be asking you to jump out of any airplanes now or in the future. we appreciate your service to our country. this is an issue that the american people deeply value. i want to echo that what we are talking about is that this is a hearing not to discuss if we're going to repeal don't ask, don't tell. it is clear that secretary gates and barack obama are going to repeal the law. the question is how the services implement the repeal to make sure there is no disruption to the force. i am grateful that you volunteered to co-chair this working group. we should move forward with care. we should also understand that this review cannot be an excuse for july. a repeal must be a dual track process. the working group of the services must figure how to implement the changes but it is the duty of congress to change the law. the

we never argued that ucmj has constituted presently would not provide a fair trial. ironically, there are elements of the military system that are more favorable to defendants. discovery is far better in the military system than the civilian system and a criminal courts. the breakdown of jury voting could be good and bad. the question of not having to have a unanimous acquittal -- all you have to get is more than a third. we get all the math. in hicks' they knocked it down -- instead of seven jurors, we had three because we ended up getting a couple disqualified. but it really changes the percentages of what you have to do. really an extraordinary difference. two out of three as opposed to three out of seven. a very different. -- or two out of seven, i should say. i have never taken a position that properly constituted military commission would not be a viable means to try war criminals. that raises the second question, what is a war criminal. much of what we are talking about it, particularly talking about abdulmutallab, christmas day at underwear bomber, criminal d

per the army field manual so you would be disobeying a direct order which is one of the articles of ucmj i think we should have an accounting in terms of having an angry to find out exactly what happened and i think everybody supports accountability. i think one of the most interesting arguments are or ways to look at this is to go back to look at president clinton's impeachment and look at the quotes for who called for accountability and the rule of law then, and what they said about how important it was to society. the last thing i will say is that this is also a leadership issue for the military. i do believe we will be doomed to repeat mistakes if we don't hold people accountable but i also think we owe ourselves within the military an and accounting of leadership and what it means. there is very few instances of officers or senior enlisted people standing up and saying no to techniques that were clearly in violation of their training and in their ethics and their code in their regulations. very few instances. i think we need to go back and adopt-- i don't want to say new training be

that is, i'm told, part of the paternalistic aspect of ucmj, because it involves a hierarchy with soldiers charged and generals often wanting punishment. that's perhaps to protect them from any sort of pressure from the command structure. that may be important when you're dealing with persons not part of the military. however, that is the way the law is currently written. so the government has to follow the law. and the military justice specialist, the department of defense concluded that that is what is required. what the obama administration tried to do when this went up to the defense secretary's office, secretary gates' office, was find some sort of work-around, some kind of procedural way, where maybe if the defendant really want to plead guilty and the judge really wants to take that plea, they can find some abbreviated procedure that is short of a full trial, but more than just the normal hearing where a defendant pleads guilty. whether that is legally sufficient is unknown because this is a new system and it is not given the kind of deference that the federal courts or courts marti

the ucmj is not the main focus of the review. >> to buy. >> thank you. mr. murphy is next. >> thank you. you mentioned that you were nervous serving as cochair. i am sure you were nervous as an 18 year-old infantryman are paratrooper. we're not going to be asking you to jump out of any airplanes now or in the future. we appreciate your service to our country. this is an issue that the american people deeply value. i want to echo that what we are talking about is that this is a hearing not to discuss if we're going to repeal don't ask, don't tell. it is clear that secretary gates and barack obama are going to repeal the law. the question is how the services implement the repeal to make sure there is no disruption to the force. i am grateful that you volunteered to co-chair this working group. we should move forward with care. we should also understand that this review cannot be an excuse for july. a repeal must be a dual track process. the working group of the services must figure how to implement the changes but it is the duty of congress to change the law.

the ucmj is not the main focus of the review. >> to buy. >> thank you. mr. murphy is next. >> thank you. you mentioned that you were nervous serving as cochair. i am sure you were nervous as an 18 year-old infantryman are paratrooper. we're not going to be asking you to jump out of any airplanes now or in the future. we appreciate your service to our country. this is an issue that the american people deeply value. i want to echo that what we are talking about is that this is a hearing not to discuss if we're going to repeal don't ask, don't tell. it is clear that secretary gates and barack obama are going to repeal the law. the question is how the services implement the repeal to make sure there is no disruption to the force. i am grateful that you volunteered to co-chair this working group. we should move forward with care. we should also understand that this review cannot be an excuse for july. a repeal must be a dual track process. the working group of the services must figure how to implement the changes but it is the duty of congress to change the law.

that is, i'm told, part of the paternalistic aspect of ucmj, because it involves a hierarchy with soldiers charged and generals often wanting punishment. that's perhaps to protect them from any sort of pressure from the command structure. that may be important when you're dealing with persons not part of the military. however, that is the way the law is currently written. so the government has to follow the law. and the military justice specialist, the department of defense concluded that that is what is required. what the obama administration tried to do when this went up to the defense secretary's office, secretary gates' office, was find some sort of work-around, some kind of procedural way, where maybe if the defendant really want to plead guilty and the judge really wants to take that plea, they can find some abbreviated procedure that is short of a full trial, but more than just the normal hearing where a defendant pleads guilty. whether that is legally sufficient is unknown because this is a new system and it is not given the kind of deference that the federal courts or courts marti