Chapter XX.
Courts-martial--Action

(Continued)

Action After Promulgation

91. COURTS-MARTIAL--ACTION--Review of Sentences of Special and Summary Courts; Filing of Records and Reports.--The officer immediately exercising general court-martial jurisdiction over a command has supervisory powers over special and summary courts-martial therein. He mill cause the records or reports of trial of such courts when forwarded to him as required by 87c to be examined for errors, defects, or omissions. He may take any authorized corrective or modifying action by him deemed necessary or desirable with respect to the sentence, or he may bring the matter to the attention of the authority that approved the sentence or his successor.

    The office of the staff judge advocate is designated as the place for filing records of special courts-martial and reports of trials by summary courts-martial forwarded as required by 87c. Special and Summary court records shall be retained in the office of the staff judge advocate until notification is received that their destruction has been authorized under the provisions of the act of August 5, 1939 (53 Stat. 1219) or that The Judge Advocate General of the Army has authorized their storage elsewhere.

92. COURTS-MARTIAL--ACTION--Correction of General Court-Martial Records.--Where a record of trial by general court-martial has been forwarded by the reviewing or confirming authority to higher authority and an error such as is referred to in 87b (Revision and correction of record, last subparagraph) is noted by such higher authority, he may himself take the action which under that subparagraph the reviewing or confirming authority might have taken.

93. COURTS-MARTIAL--ACTION--Telegraphic Report of Officer's Case.--Immediately upon the promulgation of any sentence of court-martial in the case of an officer involving suspension from rank and command, confinement, restriction, reduction in lineal rank, or any other material change in the officer's status, the commander issuing the order will advise The Adjutant General, by telegraph or similar means, of the sentence imposed as approved or mitigated and the date of promulgation thereof.

94. COURTS-MARTIAL--ACTION--Miscellaneous Matters.--As to mitigation, remission, suspension, and vacating suspension, see Articles of War 50, 52, and 53. Orders remitting the whole or any part of a sentence, issued subsequent to the order promulgating the case, will be published in appropriate general or special court-martial orders.

    A sentence to dishonorable discharge may be suspended under A.W. 52 for a period beyond the term of confinement but within the current enlistment, and if the period of suspension is not specifically indicated it will be deemed to end with the current enlistment.

    Also the proper authority may vacate at any time during a soldier's term of enlistment an order suspending a sentence.

    Any action taken toward the suspension of the sentence of a general or special court-martial while the sentence is being served and any action taken toward vacating such suspension will be promulgated in a general or special court-martial order.

    Sundry regulations relating to the execution and remission of sentences of forfeiture and confinement are contained in AR 35-2460 (Court-martial forfeitures--enlisted men) and AR 600-375 (Prisoners--general provisions).

    The authority which has designated the place of confinement, or higher authority, may change the place of confinement of any prisoner under the jurisdiction of such authority; but when a military prison or post has been designated as the place of confinement of a prisoner, the place of confinement can not thereafter be changed to a penitentiary under the same sentence.

    The distribution of general and special court-martial orders is announced from time to time by the War Department.

    When an officer is dismissed from the service for cowardice or fraud, the crime, punishment, name, and place of abode of the delinquent shall be published in the newspapers in and about the camp and in the State from which the offender came or where he usually resides; and after such publication it shall be scandalous for an officer to associate with him. (A.W. 44.) The terms "cowardice" and "fraud" as employed in A.W. 44 refer mainly to the offenses made punishable by A.W. 75 and 94. With these, however, may be regarded as included all offenses in which fraud or cowardice is necessarily involved, though the same be not expressed in terms in the charge or specification. The publication throughout the United States in press dispatches of "the crime, punishment, name, and place of abode" of the accused is a sufficient compliance with the article.

Table of Contents
Previous Chapter (19) *  Next Chapter (21)