Forever in the Military

[Gregory Matthews]

The following case is an interesting one in that it establishes teh right of the U.S. government to court martial a person retired from military service after that person had retired and for conduct that had no relationship to military service other than that the person was retired from the military.  Probably many people do not know that such power exists. 

 

Supreme Court upholds DOD authority to court martial retired service members On Feb. 22, the US Supreme Court announced it had denied a petition in the case of Larrabee v. United States, effectively upholding the Department of Defense's authority to court martial a retired Service member. Retired Marine Staff Sergeant Steven M. Larrabee was found guilty of sexually assaulting a bartender in November 2015, three months after he was retired. At his general court martial, Larrabee was sentenced to eight years' confinement, a reprimand and a dishonorable discharge. His sentence was reduced to 10 months by a pre-trial agreement. Larrabee had argued that he was not subject to Article 2 of the Uniformed Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), which provides that "[r]etired members of a regular component of the armed forces who are entitled to pay" and "[m]embers of the Fleet Reserve and Fleet Marine Corps Reserve" are subject to the UCMJ -- and to court-martial for offenses prescribed therein. The court confirmed previous rulings that military members on the retired list are not mere pensioners, but are a vital segment of the national defense, and thus are subject to the UCMJ. Read the details of the court case at

https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/docketfiles/html/public/18-306.html.[/quote]