In suicide epidemic, military wrestles with prosecuting troops who attempt it

Submitted by Mastodon on Wed, 2012-11-28 16:38

Article here. Excerpt:

'WASHINGTON — Marine Corps Pvt. Lazzaric T. Caldwell slit his wrists and spurred a legal debate that’s consuming the Pentagon, as well as the nation’s top military appeals court.

On Tuesday, the court wrestled with the wisdom of prosecuting Caldwell after his January 2010 suicide attempt. Though Caldwell pleaded guilty, he and his attorneys now question his original plea and the broader military law that makes “self-injury” a potential criminal offense.

The questions resonate amid what Pentagon leaders have called an “epidemic” of military suicides.

“If suicide is indeed the worst enemy the armed forces have,” Senior Judge Walter T. Cox III said, “then why should we criminalize it when it fails?”'

Like0 Dislike0

Comments

Unbelievable. Judges are still sitting around trying to decide if something that displays, patently and without dissent in the mental health community, a serious mental disorder whose only measurable victim is the "perpetrator", should in fact be considered a criminal offense. This is beyond regressive.

It's bad enough men are driven to suicide after being exposed to the stressors of combat or of military life, or from problems associated with it (separation from family, high divorce rate, etc.). Then to add insult to injury-- at this point, it sends such a clear signal to me that they seem to care so little about the men that are in our armed forces that at this point I cannot fathom why one would even consider joining. You might find yourself so despondent in it that you try to kill yourself-- and then get charged with a crime for it.

Unbelievable. But, as we know, these are men killing themselves, so, really, what do the judges care? If these were women, you can be 110% sure that there'd be a major Congressional investigation into the causes and definitely there'd be no talk at all of treating attempted suicide as a criminal offense.

Frankly I think they need to hear from MRAs-- as well as loads of other people. The contact page for the USCAAF is http://www.armfor.uscourts.gov/newcaaf/contact.htm. Notice there are no links to e-mail addresses for the judges; I suppose that's to be expected. Nonetheless, sending notes to uscaaf.home-at-armfor.uscourts.gov or calling the clerk's office are undoubtedly going to get reported to the judges. As always, be polite-- stick to facts: criminalizing mental illness or trauma states as evidenced by attempted suicides is nothing short of compounding an already-miserable state for a soldier/sailor/Marine/etc., leading him down an even more miserable path. Ask their honors if they would like to be prosecuted for attempted suicide after a long deployment that left them grappling with PTSD? Or how would they feel if a son or daughter faced a court-martial under the same conditions?

The Joint Service Committee on Military Justice is also mentioned in the article. Would not be a bad idea to let them know how you feel, too. It looks like their contact info is awfully scarce, but I did find the DoD Office of the Legislative Counsel here, which may in fact be a better contact for this commentary. An email address of OLC-at-osd.mil, plus they have a phone number listed.

What suicidal men need is adequate mental health care and the appropriate other levels of support from their government to deal with their problems; they do not need to have to face a court-martial just for being so depressed that they want to end their own lives.

Like0 Dislike0
Submitted by Matt on Thu, 2012-11-29 03:05