Evolution of military law in the United States

While in service, I visited the United States as a guest of the United States Air Force. As he was sometimes a presiding officer of the Court Martial in India (being legally qualified), he was interested in how the US military law works.A significant difference is that in the US, at this time there is a Unified Military Code which is applicable to the 4 service weapons, namely the army, air force, navy and coast guard, while in India we have a separate military code for each service. .

The Unified Military Code is a relatively recent development and was enacted by President Truman only in 1951. Prior to this, the code was amorphous and had very few checks and balances. It took nearly 175 years for US military law to evolve to the current Unified Military Code.

The United States was a colony of England until 1776, until a war of independence by the colonists against the English army led to the creation of the American state. to begin with, the new state adopted the British codes for the American armed forces. The United States Army now adopted what is known as the Articles of War of 1775. These were derived from British law and consisted of 69 sections. the American military code is attributed to John Adams, who was a lawyer at the time. Later he became president of the United States. The Articles of War found wide acceptance and were ratified at the Continental Army Conference.

The Articles of War were an exact copy of British law, they underwent a change and some amendments were incorporated in 1806. A team of military experts and lawyers studied the codes of many nations, including the French, and raised the sections from 69 to 101 The code provided for summary execution and, in some cases, the commanding officer of the unit at the time of battle, if convinced, could order the execution of a combatant. There was no appeal. The code was effective and instilled discipline in the American military. It was widely used in the United States Civil War from 1861 to 1865.

The beauty of this code was that it lasted for almost 150 years, without question. The first time the code was questioned was in the period of World War I when 13 black soldiers were summarily hanged by “riot”. Later, it was noted that the sanction was excessive and as there was no appeal, the sentence was carried out immediately. It was also mentioned that the soldiers’ greatest crime was that they were black.

To avoid a drop in morale, Defense Secretary Newton D. Barker intervened. He ordered that executions could no longer be carried out without referring the matter to Washington. Thus, a major change was made to the military code.

After the end of World War II, the three Chiefs of Staff appointed a committee to rationalize American military law. The committee drew up the Unified Military Code which became law in 1951. A significant change was that a series of checks and balances were introduced and the code became more humane. Death was an exception and not a rule. This code is now in vogue in the US In India, experts are also working on a unified code for all 3 services.