You’re facing a court-martial or a separation board, and the military is going to give you a lawyer for free. So why would you spend money, money that might be hard to come by, on a civilian military defense lawyer? It’s a fair question. The answer has nothing to do with whether JAG defense counsel are good or bad. Some of them are excellent. The answer is in the structure of the system itself, and what that structure can’t give you no matter who’s assigned to your case. Differences Between Civilian Military Defense Lawyers and JAG Defense Counsel In the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard, you probably won’t get a JAG defense counsel until you receive court-martial charges or notification of a separation […]
Court Martial Category
The Matti Appendix: 22 Ways Prosecutors Break the Rules in Closing Argument
April 16, 2026 by
In a single 2026 opinion, the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, the highest military court, identified 22 forms of prosecutorial misconduct in closing argument alone, catalogued decades of abuse, and then affirmed the conviction anyway. Which it has been doing for decades. CAAF has a long history of complaining about prosecutorial misconduct and doing nothing to put an end to it. Prosecutors can get away with almost anything, even calling the accused a pig. By affirming the conviction in this case while publishing a long list of the most egregious forms of abuse, CAAF sent a clear message to everyone currently under investigation: no one is coming to save you. Courts See the Abuse, Get Mad, Fix Nothing Prosecutors aren’t allowed to tell […]
Why Service Members Facing Court-Martial Should Tell Their Families
March 2, 2026 by
We get some version of this email often. It reads like this: “I’m reaching out on behalf of my son. He was recently convicted and sentenced to [X months/years] at [installation]. I only just learned about this. I don’t have any details. I’m still in shock. Is there anything that can be done?” The email usually comes from a parent, but sometimes it’s from a sibling. Or even a spouse. They just found out their loved one was convicted at court-martial, sentenced, and already sitting in confinement awaiting transfer to Fort Leavenworth or some other long-term prison. And since a lot of these queries come after conviction of a sex crime, after release from prison the service member (and family) will face the burdens of […]
3 Ways to Protect Yourself During a Military Investigation
August 22, 2016 by
Your script, simplified: What exactly am I being accused of? That’s not true. I didn’t do it. I’m not going to talk to you, I want a lawyer. If the military suspects you of committing a crime, eventually the investigators will ask you to talk. The conversation won’t be on your turf. It’ll be at their office, behind locked and guarded doors, in a tiny, windowless, clockless interrogation room. You’ll be directed where to sit. The scene and the method are scripted, staged, and calibrated for maximum psychological effect. It’s not a conversation, it’s psychological warfare. And it can last all day and night if you let it. Update, April 2026: Three recent cases (two from 2026 and one from 2017 that keeps coming up) show […]
5 Dangerous Myths About Defending A Court-Martial
August 3, 2016 by
Myth 1: A COURT-MARTIAL is required to be a fair fight Truth: From the beginning of the case, the court martial defendant faces huge disadvantages. The government has unlimited resources at a court martial, but the appointed defense counsel’s office receives very little funding. The government will have at least two prosecutors at a court martial, while the defendant is typically entitled to have only one appointed attorney. The prosecution has an entire office of investigators, but the defense is entitled to none. The prosecution can afford to travel and have any witness it wants to the court martial in order to testify against the defendant, but the defense needs to get the government’s approval to fund any defense witness travel. The prosecution gets to […]