Military Justice Improvement Act
Floor Speech
Ms. HIRONO. Mr. President, since the infamous Tailhook scandal in 1991, every Secretary of Defense has proclaimed that our military has a ``zero-tolerance'' policy for sexual harassment and sexual assault. Zero tolerance is the policy our military should have, but in reality it doesn't. We know it doesn't because we have heard too many stories from women and men in the military who have been attacked, assaulted, or raped by their peers in uniform or by their superiors. We have heard too many stories in which the assailants go unpunished. We have heard too many stories about commanding officers using their authority to set aside court-martial convictions or to decide simply not to have a trial at all. We have heard too many stories about survivors being drummed out of the service by misinformed diagnoses of mental illness or by a chain of command that ignores the assailant and instead turns around and charges the survivor with bad behavior. We have heard too many stories about survivors who are so disillusioned by this broken system that they don't even bother to report these crimes. Instead, these men and women, warriors all, are forced to live in silence and with an unjust feeling of shame.
We all agree that commanders are responsible for maintaining good order and discipline in their units. This includes creating an atmosphere of dignity and respect for everyone under their command. Commanders must create an environment where sexual crimes do not occur. Our proposed changes to the military justice system do not absolve the commander of these responsibilities.
It is still their job to prevent these crimes. But when these crimes do occur, survivors should have the ability to seek justice, and the Gillibrand amendment will help the survivors do just that.
I am glad our civilian and military leaders have committed to helping the survivors of sexual assault, punishing the predators and ending these terrible injustices. When the service secretaries and chiefs tell me fixing the problem of sexual assault is a top priority for them, I believe them. I believe they care deeply about this problem. Unfortunately, incremental change has not been and is not good enough. Commanders bear the responsibility for creating a culture where these crimes do not happen in the first place.
Congress must also do its part to ensure there is a system in place that both holds people accountable and doles out punishment that actually serves as a deterrent against future sexual assaults. Over the years, Congress has passed a variety of measures intended to fix these problems, and we have many good provisions in both the House and Senate versions of the NDAA which we are considering. But I do not believe these steps are enough. We must make a major change. We owe it to the men and women who serve our country in uniform. We owe it to the families and loved ones of those who serve because the trauma of sexual assault often extends beyond the trauma experienced by the survivor. We must do all we can to provide an environment where those who put their lives on the line for our country each and every day are not sexually assaulted. And if they are, we must provide a fair system of justice where the survivor is heard and not ignored, is helped and not shunned. That requires, I believe, vesting the decision about whether or not to go to trial with an impartial experienced military lawyer and not with the commander in the chain of command who has an inherent vested interest in the case.
It is undeniable the current system does not work. According to the Department of Defense, there were an estimated 26,000 cases of unwanted sexual contact in 2012. We have heard about trainers at Lackland Air Force Base repeatedly raping new enlistees. We have heard about incidents at the Service Academies, Aviano Air Force Base, Fort Greely, Fort Hood, and too many other bases. It is undeniable that we have a problem. The incremental steps we have taken are not enough.
The story of Marine 2nd Lt. Elle Helmer is just one example of this broken system. She told her story in the documentary ``The Invisible War,'' and it has also been reported elsewhere, including a CNN interview and in the Houston Chronicle.
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Ms. HIRONO. Mr. President, the Houston Chronicle article tells the following account:
Lieutenant Helmer was stationed at Marine Barracks Washington in 2006, just a few blocks from the Senate Chamber. One night, after she was ordered to go bar hopping with her colleagues, a superior officer called her into his office and attacked her. She remembers him slamming her head into his desk, and then she blacked out. When she woke up she was wearing her superior officer's shorts, and she knew she had been raped. Two guards found her outside crying and shaking. She asked a colonel to call an ambulance and, instead, the colonel warned her she would be charged with public intoxication and conduct unbecoming an officer if she reported the attack. When Lieutenant Helmer finally made it to a military hospital, the sexual assault victim advocate warned her, ``These cases never go anywhere.''
Lieutenant Helmer pressed her case anyway. But after many months, here is the only thing that happened. Lieutenant Helmer was charged with fraternization and conduct unbecoming an officer, and the superior officer who attacked her received no punishment. In fact, he was later promoted.
This story should outrage us all. This story shows that when sexual assault occurs, the current system does not work. It is time to make fundamental changes to how sexual assault cases are handled in the military.
The amendment of Senator Gillibrand would be a big step in the right direction. Her amendment would take the decision to go forward with a trial out of the chain of command and place it in the hands of an experienced military lawyer. This change would improve the judicial process by increasing transparency. It would also eliminate potential bias and conflict of interest because, unlike a commanding officer, the military lawyer would be unconnected to either the survivor or the accused. Just the perception of such bias or conflict of interest could discourage a survivor from reporting a sexual assault and thereby allow the attacker to prey on others again and again.
Many survivors of sexual assault tell us the main reason they do not report these crimes is because they think nothing will happen. The current process often does not work. It is unacceptable to allow this situation to continue.
The problem of sexual assault is a scourge on our military for which there is no silver bullet. But at the very least what we need is a military justice system where a survivor feels confident that his or her case will be fairly examined and, if deemed to have sufficient evidence, be sent forward to trial.
Sexual assault in the military is something that most people don't want to talk about. We don't want to think the men and women whose service we honor on Veterans Day are being preyed upon by their colleagues or, even worse, that they themselves may be sexual predators. There is no doubt in my mind that the overwhelming majority of our military men and women serve our country valiantly and with honor, and we should take care not to tarnish them with suspicion. In fact, we owe it to them to act.
It is for these reasons that I am a proud cosponsor of Senator Gillibrand's Military Justice Improvement Act. I urge my colleagues to support it, and to my colleagues who are opposed or undecided, I want to say again that keeping disposition authority within the chain of command has not worked. One of the arguments I have heard against making this change is that doing so would interfere with the commander's ability to maintain good order and discipline. Good order and discipline should not rest upon a commander's ability to decide whether or not to prosecute a sexual crime.
The time has come to make a significant change, and I believe this is a change that needs to be made. I want to commend our colleague Senator Kirsten Gillibrand for her tireless efforts and courageous leadership in this effort to help survivors of sexual assault in the military.
I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
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