No probation? Why not?

Well, the military has a sort of probation, but it’s not well formalized. Suspending a sentence is a form of unsupervised probation. Maybe some more detailed supervision would be appropriate. No reason a commander can’t do that already – conditions on suspending punishment. Also, the Services – well the Air Force and Army used to have a fairly vibrant return to duty program. Whether these programs will be available is a different question in today’s drawdown environment.

Army JA MAJ Evan R. Seamone is something of a leader in writing about actions for military personnel suffering combat related PTSD and TBI. So this piece is not unexpected.

If the civilian justice system has embraced treatment courts that care for veterans stricken with combat stress and brain injuries instead of punishing them, why can’t the military justice system? It can and it should, asserted Maj. Evan Seamone, the chief of military justice at Fort Benning, Ga., in an article published in the most recent issue of the journal Military Law Review.

So says a report in Army Times. And of course as CoJ, MAJ Seamone is in a position to recommend probation-like actions post-trial (at least for the moment). The report references this Military Law Review piece, MAJ Evan R. Seamone, Reclaiming the Rehabilitative Ethic in Military Justice: The Suspended Punitive Discharge as a Method to Treat Military Offenders with PTSD and TBI and Reduce Recidivism, 208 MIL. L. REV. 1 .

Also, MAJ Seamone has a chapter in Attorney’s Guide to Defending Veterans in Criminal Court.

[Update] Just as I’m about to go to print, CAAFLog notes the appearance of a tome co-authored by MAJ Seamone.

Major John W. Booker, Major Evan R. Seamone & Leslie C. Rogall, Beyond “T.B.D.” Understanding VA’s Evaluation of a Former Servicemember’s Benefit Eligibility Following Involuntary or Punitive Discharge from the Armed Forces, 214 Mil. L. Rev. 1 (2012). [Note, it takes a while to load because of file size.]