The Military's Death Penalty System

An excerpt from: ​“A Matter of Life and Death: Examining the Military Death Penalty’s Fairness” by Dwight Sullivan (The Federal Lawyer, June 1998) (reprint­ed with perms­sion of author)

Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, 15 offens­es can be pun­ish­able by death, though many of these crimes — such as deser­tion or dis­obey­ing a supe­ri­or com­mis­sioned offi­cer’s orders — car­ry the death penal­ty only in time of war.

The ​“con­ven­ing author­i­ty” — a high-rank­ing com­mand­ing offi­cer who decides to bring the case to tri­al — choos­es whether the gov­ern­ment will seek a death sen­tence. If the case is referred cap­i­tal­ly, the defen­dant can­not choose a bench [judge only] tri­al; rather, the case must be tried before a pan­el of at least five mil­i­tary mem­bers (DPIC note: now 12 mem­bers are required on the pan­el for a cap­i­tal case (RCM 501(a)). The Uniform Code of Military Justice also pre­cludes the defen­dant in a cap­i­tal case from plead­ing guilty. Thus, every mil­i­tary death penal­ty case is resolved by tri­al before a pan­el of servicemembers.

A death penal­ty will be imposed only if the pan­el mem­bers reach unan­i­mous agree­ment on four sep­a­rate points. First, a mil­i­tary defen­dant can­not be sen­tenced to death absent a unan­i­mous con­vic­tion of a death-eli­gi­ble offense.… If the pan­el returns a unan­i­mous con­vic­tion, the case then enters the sen­tenc­ing phase.… The case’s out­come will depend upon the [pan­el] mem­bers’ res­o­lu­tion of three issues. First, they must deter­mine whether the gov­ern­ment has proven a spec­i­fied aggra­vat­ing fac­tor beyond a rea­son­able doubt.… Most of these aggra­vat­ing fac­tors — such as killing more than one per­son or being the trig­ger­man in a felony mur­der — are sim­i­lar to those found in civil­ian cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment schemes. Other fac­tors — such as com­mit­ting an offense with the intent to avoid haz­ardous duty or know­ing­ly endan­ger­ing a mis­sion — are unique to the military.

[The pan­el] must then weigh all of the aggra­vat­ing evi­dence in the case against any evi­dence in exten­u­a­tion and mit­i­ga­tion. A death penal­ty may not be imposed unless the mem­bers unan­i­mous­ly con­clude that the aggra­vat­ing cir­cum­stances sub­stan­tial­ly out­weigh the mitigating circumstances.

Finally, even if every mem­ber agrees upon the exis­tence of an aggra­vat­ing fac­tor and con­cludes that the evi­dence in aggra­va­tion out­weighs the exten­u­at­ing and mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence, any mem­ber is still free to choose a sen­tence oth­er than death. Thus, mem­bers must unan­i­mous­ly con­clude that death is an appro­pri­ate sen­tence.

When a death sen­tence is imposed, the record is ini­tial­ly reviewed by the con­ven­ing author­i­ty, who has the pow­er to reduce sen­tences and to set aside guilty find­ings.… The con­ven­ing author­i­ty can reduce the sen­tence, but can­not increase it. And this review is no mere rub­ber­stamp. Several years ago, a Marine Corps gen­er­al com­mut­ed an adjudged death sen­tence to impris­on­ment for life. If the con­ven­ing author­i­ty approves the death sen­tence, the con­demned ser­vice­mem­ber will be moved to mil­i­tary death row.…

The record of tri­al then goes before one of the mil­i­tary jus­tice sys­tem’s four inter­me­di­ate appel­late courts: the Army, Navy-Marine Corps, Air Force, or Coast Guard Court of Criminal Appeals.… If the Court of Criminal Appeals affirms a death sen­tence, the case then goes before the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, as the Court of Military Appeals was renamed in 1994. The Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces is a five-mem­ber Article 1 court that sits atop the mil­i­tary jus­tice sys­tem. Its judges are civil­ians appoint­ed by the President with the advice and con­sent of the Senate to serve 15-year terms.

[If the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces affirms the sen­tence], the case is eli­gi­ble for Supreme Court review. The Supreme Court’s cer­tio­rari juris­dic­tion over mil­i­tary jus­tice cas­es… was enact­ed in 1983.… When the Supreme Court affirms [the sen­tence] or denies cer­tio­rari in a mil­i­tary cap­i­tal case, the death sen­tence is then reviewed by the exec­u­tive branch. If the President approves the death sen­tence, the con­demned ser­vice­mem­ber can seek habeas relief from the Article III judi­cia­ry. If the habeas peti­tion is ulti­mate­ly denied, the con­demned ser­vice­mem­ber will be led from death row down a flight of stairs to the USDB’s death cham­ber. There he will be strapped to a gur­ney and exe­cut­ed by lethal injection.