Good morning. I would like to welcome the members and everyone who is in attendance today to the 13th Public Meeting of the Defense Advisory Committee on investigation and prosecution defense of Sexual Assault in the armed forces. The dacipad. Of the faking Committee Members, 11 members ares, present this morning and a 12 member will be joining us by telephone at 10 00 this morning. Two members were not able to attend today, Major GeneralMarsha Anderson and judge reggie walton. The dacipad was greeted by the secretary of defense in 2016 in accordance with the National Defense authorization act for fiscal year 2015 as amended. Our mandate is to advise secretary of defense on the investigation, prosecution and defense of allegations for Sexual Assault and other Sexual Misconduct involving members of the armed forces. Please note todays meeting is being b transcribed, a complete written transcript will be posted on the dacipad website. But todays meeting will begin with the dacipad Data Working Group present the fiscal year 2018 conviction and acquittal rates for Sexual Assault in the military base on his collection of case documents from all military Sexual Assault cases closed during the fiscal year. Next, staff director will provide an overview of the Draft Department of defense report onn allegations of collateral misconduct against individuals identified as victims of sexual soul. This draft report was submitted to the dacipad for its input on the dod general counsel info from of section 547 of the fiscal National Defense authorization act for fiscal year 2019. Following the overview of the report, Service Representatives involved inth the report, drafting, and Data Collection will appear before the committee to answer questions about the data and the report methodology. Following the collateral misconduct discussion the committee willl hear from three additional panels. The services military Justice Division chief, the Services SpecialVictims Counsel program managers, and the Services Trial acfense Service Organization chief. These panelists will each respond to questions from f Committee Members regarding their organizations written responses to questions, the dacipad submitted in may on the topics of Sexual Assault conviction and acquittal rate, the case adjudication process, and the victim declination to purchase meat in the military justice process. I want to thank the people who responded because those are very, veryan substantive responses. Following these Panel Discussions the committee will receive the status updateit froa working group and a presentation by its Data Working Group regarding the fiscal year 2018 case adjudication data report plan. For the final session of the meeting the committee was deliberate on the dod collateral misconduct report and the Services Responses to its written questions. Each Public Meeting of the dacipad includes time for Public Comment we received no request for Public Comment for todays meeting. During the meeting if the member of the audience would like to make a Public Comment on the issue before the committee report, please direct your request to the dacipad staff director, colonel weir. All Public Comment will be heard at the end of the meeting and at the discretion of the chair. Written Public Comments may be submitted at any time or committee consideration. Before we do the data review though, i want to think of the bird for being here today and i think well start off with colonell weir. We are ready for your remarks. Thank you, maam. As the chair mentioned from this collateral misconduct study was a result of the National Defense authorization act public law 115232. In that legislation it says the secretary of defense acting to the dacipad shall submit a report to the congressional defense committees that include the following information. Im reading now from the legislation. There are three requirements that this legislation put out. Number one, the number of instances in which a covered individual was accused of a misconduct or crimes considered collateral to the investigation of a Sexual Assault committed against the individual. And so its important to understand what a a covered individual is. Its defined, it means an individual was identified as a a victim of a Sexual Assault in the case of military criminal investigative organization. Number two, the number of instances in which an adverse action was taken against a covered individual who was accused of collateral misconduct or crimes as described in paragraph one. And number three, the third piece of information that was required was the percentage of investigations of Sexual Assaults that involves an accusation or adverse action against a covered individual as described in paragraphs one and two. The the services were tasked with gathering the requested information and that information in a draft report was awarded to the dacipad in aed letter from dod general counsel on june 11, 2019. He provided the draft report to give the dacipad an opportunity to offer any Additional Information or analysis and provide that feedback to the secretary of defense. He has requested the dacipad reply by september 15. The report is due to congress on september 30. The dacipad staff reviewed the draft report submitted by each of the services to include the coast guard. The staff are quite a meeting with the Service Representatives and individuals who were responsible for compiling the information in the draft reports. Reports. This meeting was held on july 9 in the dacipad conference room. The staff requested this meeting some it could better understand the methodology behind the gathering of information because it was clearga there were different in methodology and definition between the services. For example, the Army Definition of accusative from the navymarine corps definition. The navymarine corps only counter collateral misconduct committed by the victim if an inquiry into the clatter misconduct was actually initiated. We were told that that meant a report of investigation was initiated. The army defined accused as a victim who may have potentially committed a ucmj violation. Therefore, they have slightly different definition of the air force did not require a separate investigation into the misconduct. The army had a low number of Sexual Assault investigations for the time april 1, 2017 to march 31, 2019 involving 19 involving a nonaddictive. Based upon experience of the case or use an courtmartial database, we knew something was off. During the meeting we discovered the army only counted penetrative Sexual Assault investigation whereas the t oths counted penetrative and contact. After the beating the navymarine corps and air force since corrected numbers which change thed percentages in the original draft report. As the staff reviewed the percentage it became apparent the percentages perhaps did not accurately reflect those victims that punished as a percentage of those victims who committed collateral misconduct. Instead the Services Report the number of victims receiving adverse action out of the total number of Sexual Assault investigations involving Service Member victims from their respective services. And so as a result of the report and the different methodologies, we thought it was important that dacipad committee have an opportunity to review the Services Report which we have sent to you for your review, and also have an opportunity to deliberate and discuss which is going to look occurred near the end of this Public Session in order to compile a letter back to the secretary of defense. Pending any of your questions, thats all i have right now. Anybody have any questions for colonel weir . Then we will turn to mr. Mason for your remarks. Good morning. You dont have to stop in this morning because im not as excited as ae was yesterday, so we all agreed to cover just the conviction and acquittal rates. If the couple slides. This afternoon i cannot promise we will not be excited again because well do all the data. But for conviction and acquittal rates, the first chart we have is the outcomes for penetrative offenses that were referred to courtmartial. I apologize, just the one slide on on the lefthand side of the room. But if you look at the top find, thats fy 2018. When somebody had a referred penetrative offense in 28. 2 of the time, they were convicted for a penetrative offense. At the other extreme is 37. 3 of time they were acquitted of all charges. So if that multiple charges against him with the most serious offense the penetrative offense, in 37. 3 of the time they were acquitted of everything. That is an increase over fy 17 when the overall acquittal rate for penetrative referred was 1 . St dirty 31 . And you look at the same class of cases where its a referred to trial and then handled adjudicated by a military judge, the conviction rate for the penetrative offense goes to 33. 3 , which was previously 20. 2 overall. The acquittal rate drops to 17 . So you have a much lower acquittal rate when youre going in front of a military judge and its a penetrative offense. Where it gets interesting is when you now look, when it adjudicated by a panel of members, the conviction rate is 23. 2 23. 2 which is slightly lower than the overall rate but the acquittal rate is 59. 4 . So looking at the statistics it might be safe to say that if you have a penetrative case that is preferred, you may want to have it adjudicated in front of members because your chances for acquittal are much higher than if you go before the military judge. If you look, we have the numbers for 18 through 15. The acquittal rate bounces back and forth so that is it a true trend that we can identify that its going in one direction or the other. Only to say that in the most recent year, the acquittal rate members is much higher than it was in the w previous year. And now we want to look at those same metrics when were talking about a contact offense that was referred to trial. You have a much smaller universe ofav cases, but when youre looking at convicted of a contact offense is the most serious offense, its almost 14. 5 and the acquittal rate is 20. 9 . Just going back to when we talk about penetrative, it was 28. 2 for convicted of a penetrative, and acquittal was 37. 3. So we had a higher acquittal rate overall penetrative than you are realizing with a contact offenses. If you have a contact case that is adjudicated in front of a judge, you are at almost 15 for conviction for the contact, and only 6. 5 for an acquittal but you have a much larger 78. 7 , they are convicted of some other fence. So the contact Sexual Assault o was most serious offense theyau were charged with, one or multiples and other offenses, navy article 92 article 112, something along those lines. They were found guilty of those rather than likely are likely e found guilty of those offenses in the sex assault, or be completely acquitted. And then when you look at it from military members, the overall acquittal rate again is much higher when you did it with members. So the military judge was realizing 6. 4 overall acquittal rate for the contact. In front of members it was for a 6. 7 acquittal. Interestingly, the convicted for a contact offense with the members was almost 17 , and it was 18 with the judge. So the membersf are finding them guilty of a contact offense more than the judge is, but the judge is finding him guilty of something, and the members are more likely to acquit. We wanted to just give you an overview of whats happening withu penetrative and contact so that you have that in the back of your mind as you hearing the professionals today and you can ask their opinion of, do they see this as a trend or problem . Is this how the system should work . We are not drawing any conclusions it is right or wrong. We are just giving you a we know from our statistics and assessment of what is happening at the trial level. Thank you, maam. Thank thank you mr. Mason. I have a couple of questions. On the contact offenses where the military judge was convicting a substantial number of nonsex offenses, would those charges standing alone have had to go to a general courtmartial . Without knowing the specifics, other offenses, i cant tell you in our database we, in order for a case to be in her database has beene, either penetrative or contact Sexual Assault. We also enter every other offense on the charge sheet. So we could go through our database and look andth say, contact with the sears Sexual Assault. But was there an attempted murder is something elsett that was a rather extreme offense, a serious offense that would rise to the level of a general courtmartial . We could tell you that jerk i just dont have it on the top of my head. But things like underage drinking or fraternization, with those of contra general courtmartial . Not necessarily. Can you go back to your very first slide foror a moment. So if you take the full acquittal rate for fiscal year 18 and convicted of nonsexual offense i just cant really see the numbers that will. Whats the total percentage . If you do convicted of Sexual Assault in the penetrative or contact Sexual Assault, you are going to be at 28 , 29 . And then your acquittal speedy acquittal or conviction acquittal is upl 70 . Acquittal of the Sexual Assault about 70 rate . Yes. Thank you. Yes, maam. Other audit any other questir mr. Mason . Mr. Mason, thank you. Im just curious if there is any similar data in the civilian contact for a judge or jury outcomes on cases that you know of . I am not aware of it. We have talked, and when kate is up speaking that she can probably tell you about other studies shes looked at with respect to the investigations in Going Forward. We could probably look at the Sentencing Commission and see what metrics they are trackinget to see if something would address it. But i dont know of anything that is a direct correlation to what we have. Just to be clear, this data tells you t whats happening but it doesnt tell you why these things happen . It does not. That would involve further analysis . We can tell you these of the results, and if you want to see the record ofhe trial for these cases, we have much of the documents. We dont have the complete transcript, but we can pull out what the article 32 hearing report was. We can look at what the sga advised we can say that the convening authority decide to go forward or not. We can tell you the way our database, because if it were antiquated at this point, weree not able to follow every specific charge on a straight ifline. It puts them into blocks and we have to then book within each block and try to a of the line to pick up the results for each of those. But that doesnt mean we cant do it. Its just laborintensive. An okay. Just one more question, sorry. I just want to make sure i understand this. When a a look at the fiscal yer though, i see the 37. 3 of all, but the other pieces, their convicted of something . Are convicted of something. We will act in the report when this chart is published, it will say the most serious offense referred to the courtmartial was a penetrative offense. However, if they were found not guilty of the penetrative but found guilty of a contact offense or assault and battery, then thete assault and battery would be in that blue column, the 30. 3. We are saying there was a conviction. It just wasnt for the penetrative. Thankne you. Mr. Mason, i want to make sure i understand. In order for the dacipad to do the best work its grabbing the data can need a better database system, correct . We actually need a legitimate database. We are using a sharepoint website which share point was developed as a way to share documents. Because we are a documentbased system and and we have to have a legal document that we can look at and pull the information from, we take those and enter them into fields so that we can aggregate what we have. But then to get an outcome the only way we can do is to an exl spreadsheet and sort by college and count them. Its not a database. If you ask anybody who works in databases, this is not. Its a workaround. It is served remarkably well for its purposes. The jp p start this with limited funds, limited people. I mentioned it to you yesterday. Because of one person, we have one individual, stacy, who was entered all 4000 cases into our database. So she has written everyone of those documents and then the categorizes it and enters it. But the only way we can do this Going Forward is with a legitimate database that youre able to track and offense, eah individual offense as the unit and then combine those units into the case and then look at the cases. We are unable to do that at this point back. And that would better serve the members of this committee . And allow you to print the information to the services present as was the caucus was ask youes to investigate this. It would allow you to actually do the job that youve been asked to do. Thank you. Thank you so much for the information. I called you are inspector gadget with all the data. We love it. You have to understand your information and be able to manage it. Are you aware in the different branches of military, are you aware of any system or database that is able to track the information and report data as yet presented to us today . There are systems within each service that at camp to track courtsmartial that areha happening from beginning to end attempt. However, something i will get into with the data report, we asked him to provide the cases to us so that we can add the tour database. We do e not have, when a charge sheet is greater we dont have access to it. We have to wait for them to provide it to f us. The problem we have run into is the number of cases that these Services Report to us as being a valid case for the purposes of our study, the actual Response Rate is nowhere near what they think it should be. So as an example, services, they gave us 774 cases in this past year that they believe are aie penetrative or contact Sexual Assault that was resolved in that fiscal year. Only 574 of those were actual cases that we contract. So 75 of what they told us were actually the cases. The other ones that were reported were maybe a child sex assault that we dont attract track, or the duplicative and the toll isnd the same in two or three times. Unfortunately, issue we ran into an issue where we have a multiple of cases that they were reported as being cases but they have no documentation to back it up in ther system. We have a name but we dont have an actual case so we dont know if the case and we cant counter. So the short answer is, no, theres not a system i am aware of that can do what were trying to do. Thank you mr. Mason. I think we are ready for the panel. Panel on collateral misconduct. That would be Lieutenant Colonel colonel kazin, major ervasti, lieutenant kraemer and lieutenant miller. Good morning, and welcome. Thank you for being here to share your perspective on the collateral misconduct and the results of your studies. Im going to start off with one question, and we will see what have. Her members do you all agree that you should be using the same definitions, for the same terms as your reporting data out . Because of some of your different definitions, the army figures showed a 10 adverse action and collateral misconduct, and the marine corps showed a 92 adverse action which seems absurd they realize youre talking apples and oranges. My question for each of you and i guess well start with you, lieutenant miller and go across, do you think we should all be using the same definitions . Yes, maam. I think this is just a function of the first time conducting this type of study. And i noticed that congress didnt did actually give you very many definitions. Yes, maam. Uniform definitions would be useful. Yes, maam. We agree. It would provide a much more useful measure across services if there were uniform definitions. In our responses for the marine corps it would likely been much different had the term suspected of collateral misconduct that accused of collateral misconduc misconduct. I agree as well. Yes them, we generally agree having universal definitions and the to attempts by the services to try torv coordinate this didnt come to light joint Services Committee but we basically got together and tried to hash out some of the distinctions without the services defining things. Some of them are cultural things about the services defined adverse, information or adverse conduct. T. And so there were some differences but we made attempts to try to smooth out some of the differences based on the lack of statutory types that was provided to us initially. As i mentioned, with the first im going to this iteration weve seen with thera bumps are and hopefully can smooth this process out and cleaned up our distinctions and going for the future, get better data polls im sorry, what would be, m so i can pronounce your last name. Whats the difference between suspected of collateral misconduct and accused of collateral misconduct . Soy. Yes, sir. So accused of collateral misconduct all a rethink of an accusation in the terms of a charge sheet for some sort of formal accusation where somebody is being accused of something, suspected wouldte include things like where a a witness statemet or some other information came to the o light of the commander where theye couldve could ofd of collateral misconduct but they worked. Thats where those numbers were not reflected in i the marine corps of the navys responses. So they are treated differentlyte now . No sir. They are not treated equally. They are just not captured in the numbers. Across the services its important to point out when we analyze the numbers, were all talk about a very, very small percentage of cases that we did with in the first place. So for the marine corps is numbers for example, 826 victims that we look at, ten of them received any sort of adverse action. There were probably hire number included where there was some sort of underage drinking or some sort of offense where the commands could have taken action but there was no formal inquiry, no formal actionry taken. So we define this as being not accused of collateral misconduct accusationre was no made. Thank you. This is sort of maybe going out alone bit towards the end, but i know that we are looking at this data for one reason. But do the services find this data important for you, your work handling Sexual Violence cases . Is that useful data to know if there are victims that are facing collateral consequences for collateral misconduct and whats happening to this cases in terms of whether you feel, you know, you are improving justice, safety . Or is this something that you just see as an exercise and people overseeing what you are doing . So from our point of view its useful in the sense more of a policy sense of when there are concerns about retaliation retaliation is often linked to some sort of adverse action, of whether or not there is adverse action being taken against victims that might dissuade them from reporting. Separate social retaliation, look at retaliation as an actual adverse action by the chain of command, knowing that the overall the consistency among the services at a very low percentage of actual adverse action helps us understand yes, there are valid concerns about retaliation, but the reality of overall percentages versus anecdotal stories, the anecdotal stories are in the minority in that 1 and lets us focus more on what is a rare issue which a social ostracism and how to make that not a factor in victims coming for to not report. I would agree with that as well. I think just having the data by itself is important. Im sort of a proponent of that. Ii also, as a victim advocate, too, i know its important from the perspective. Because that something gets talked about as well, as well if you report sex assault, what kind of potential adverse consequences might that exposure to. Im actually very glad we took this time to get an answer on what thehe numbers are on that. Yes, i agree as well it was her useful. One trend we had not been aware of before pulling theseaw numbes is, at least in our cases 70 of the victims who received some sort of adverse action collateral misconduct had previous disciplinary action. Say for example, if a victim received adverse counseling for underage drinking or some sort of offense, in 70 of the cases there was a prior incident preceding a Sexual Assaulter thats Important Information for commanders because from the commanders perspective we can see why it might be reasonable for them to feel like they need to take action but also understanding it from the a teens perspectivels as well. That would be the toughest case for victim to come forward and report having had previous adverse action in the past. Yes, it is important were glad to have the data youre certainly were all concerned and one to understand that are circumstances that would dissuade a victim from coming forward because of the collateral circumstances. Yes. I think all the highlights have been discussed at this point. The one thing i know that was valuable for the coast guard was looking at a onesizefitsall approach to collateral misconduct. But i think that was guided more by what was perceived instead of the actual numbers that we found. Because i think its a good one here stated, the percentage of actual collateral misconduct is very low in comparison to what i think somebody who doesnt access to these numbers would look at and say, is happening because those are the cases that hear about the most. This gives actual data to drive policy decisions as well as i think as we mentioned here, it reinforces the unique commanders indiscretion to address issues were you might have other good order and discipline issues that need to be addressed and really can only be addressed in a very specific, fact specific scenari scenario. Thank you. When you all were looking at what constituted collateral misconduct, was there a a timeframe that youre looking at in the data that you gave . Was it coincident with the alleged Sexual Assault . And then combining with that, because i soon for most of you the answer was yes, do you agree that you see sometimes conduct that comes downstream after a Sexual Assaultm that might be misconduct that could be causally related potentially to wouldxual assault that not be captured in these numbers could result in adverse action . Selfmedication later. Yes. We often had to look at whether that washe captured in the Investigation Report initially because that was our first poll. We went intoor every case from e time. And i did find that victim and pulled that case. In some of the cases we found where the misconduct was the impetus of reporting. An example, if someone came up hot for cocaine and are being processed for separation and adverse action as been under the service regulation, and during that time period, during theod administration of adverse action is when the report came down. We considered that collateral because it was really very close in time and it couldve been self soothing or selfmedicating to deal with the trauma. That was captured in the overall numbers because we consider that to be collateral although a bit of judgment on a park because we could just said it didnt happen before, not after. So theres little bit of judgment in there. In that particular case, the Sexual Assault would use as essentially mitigating evidence because it had occurred prior but the command use their discretion as it we understand now that you Sexual Assault involve another cocaine use might be related to that and businessmen all the actions in it. The way the army approached it was the with but anything that was around that time. And then itou was a specific, wh each unit go to that case file, was is related to the misconduct or to the sexual so anyway . Reported back in our numbers. In the navy, i mean, ill be collateral misconduct that we reported here was actually, did have some direct coincidence with the sex assault. So it occurred generally, happening the same night, maybe just an hour or even during the assault. But thats not to say we didnt also get when we were collecting the data, we get some reports, maybe from commands that didnt quite understand what were asking for but they gave us reports of misconduct by the victim it happened afterwards that clearly had a a connectiono the sex assault. I mean, the psychological trauma that may be led them to become engaged in Substance Abuse. So we did, we have that data but we didnt consider that to be collateral misconduct to the task here. Yes, i agree as well. That would w be incredible usefl dead after it was included in the marine corps is numbers as well. We had aco number of cases, for example, will be double checked with the command was sending us for numbers by pulling the records ourselves. We would go through and see, for example, that a victim had been in jp a month or two months after the report the Sexual Assault. So we go back and say hey, double checkwe this. Are you sure there was no punishment for collateral misconduct . The command would come back and say usually, it was a totally separate incident so it was not collateral misconduct. When we did go through all of those records, it was almost sad or heartbreaking to see the High Percentage of cases where the person is being separated a year, six months after the report a Sexual Assault or Something Like a Mental Health condition or some sort of other underlying. That is an issue we did bring up and have addressed, or at least decided it warrants further study. I do think that a study that looked at victims after the report a Sexual Assault, the percentages of them that, six months, a year, two years down the road are separated or get out of the service and what the reasons are that they separate would be very useful and beneficial. Thank you for asking the question, because the temporal aspect is a key distinction between the definitions and the services. The air force did something find a different than the navy, in that we only included content that was happening at the time of the allegation that wasnt already known. Meaning, if it happened after it was not included, again when we further reviewed our numbers which were provided in supplemental report, we also excluded that misconduct that was already known. Our initial numbers were any misconduct that was happening roughly in the same course of the investigation. But we excluded that misconduct that was already known because our understanding was that theau study had information that would dissuade a victim from coming forward. If the misconduct was already known, presumably it would dissuade the victim from coming forward. So, for example, the air force had one victim who was already, those already a command directed investigation for the misconduc misconduct. During the corps of that investigation a Sexual Assault was alleged. Very similar to what the army described, but in that case we excluded it because our understanding of a basis for the study was different. Yes, maam. The coast guard did something very similar or identical to what the air force did, in that you had to the Sexual Assault first in time and then misconduct came next. So the convening authority had to have been aware of both the Sexual Assault allegation as well as the misconduct for us to count it in our numbers. We did not include anyone, but subsequent it are referred to as subsequent misconduct did come up in certain cases similar i think that was the Substance Abuse where you had someone several years down the road, either drugs or alcohol, and was being process for discharge and do that they came to light there was a previous Sexual Assault. But i think as well it would be very difficult in certain situations toul understand, you know, what subsequent misconduct would lookdu like, whether thats just a decline in performance for somebody that does get article 15 punishment down the road, where what the actual causal link is to the Sexual Assault. I think when you look at separations that might be easier, but if you have a High Performance and then all of a sudden their performance declines for them but theyre still an average performer, even slightly below average, you wouldnt be able to necessarily capture that that was directly related to the Sexual Assault like you s would if there Substance Abuse aspect. Thank you. So one of the things that we discovered when we look at the data is that the services had a very different approach to what was called false reports. With the air force counting false reports as part of their data on collateral misconduct, and the other services did not. So the question is, how did you define a false report . Did it require recantation by the victim, or what was, what were the criteria used to determine that the report was false . And how did you make the determination that a report was false . And do you think its appropriate to consider issues a false report in collateral misconduct data . The coast guard, looking at our numbers, there were to make instance a false report. One was from a thirdparty that witnessed a sex act that was then discovered to be consensual during the corps of investigation. And then there was another one where an alleged victim, alleged Sexual Assault, it wasal determined that it was not a Sexual Assault. Both of those numbers were included in our numbers. However, there was no adverse action taken for the false report. One, obviously, because it was a thirdparty that perceived something that wasnt actually happening. And the other incidents, there was just a action taken. But both of those numbers were included in our collateral misconduct. So its difficult to know ith think would be useful for us to know is whether a false allegation should or should not be included. Its logical that if the basis of the Sexual Assault allegation is found to be false, it wouldnt be collateral misconduct. So ila recommendation would be o exclude that but certainly goes back to the c initial questions that uniformity in definitions would be useful. At the Headquarters Level we did make a determination or the fine false allegation. We look to whether there were circumstances or if it was an allegation if there was a false allegation. In the air force were five of those cases. In two of the cases that were adverse actions given that would be at the command at the local Service Legal office whether they would made that determination, so we left it at that. We had additional cases where there were other false official statements that were notth relad to a false allegation so we categorize those differently. But we did make an integral definition false allegation, simply the was a false official statement related to the Sexual Assault happening at all. We also did not include similar but different question whether was a crossue claim a Sexual Assault. We had ten of this cases where theres an allegation of Sexual Assault and then the victim collateral misconduct was that, no, you Sexual Assault of me,r the accused rather said no, you Sexual Assault at me so we had a cross claim. We found it challenging to count those so recounted that as most official statements, not false allegation what there was a collateral im sorry, we counted that as a Sexual Assault that was across claim. We found those very challenging all related to the question of false allegation. We did the same way. So we did not attempt to get into the underlying merits of any one allegation. We defined a false allegation as a command had taken action against that personn so either n jpo courtmartial for the false official statement. We didnt of the case, there were five cases what where pers punished for making a false allegation, and that was not included in the collateral misconduct report. We didnt of the cases, numbers that were included where the timing and the nature of of the way the incident was recorded led thent command to believe tht taking action against that person was nonetheless appropriate. For example, cases where said a person is pulled overon for a d, and then a month later at the njp says i was driving intoxicated to flee a Sexual Assault that happened at an unknown location that i am not going to provide any statement to ncis about cases like that again our positions will nots define that as false or true. We are not going to look at the merits of the allegation. Well support that they can in whatever way we can, but the command may nonetheless feel it is appropriate to take disciplinary action against that person for the offense that was discovered by the command. So we looked, we asked ncis for data, so out of those total number of sex assault investigations that they had to pass, they had a certain number of those where that investigation had sort of transition into an investigation for either perjury or false official statement against the victim. And then they had a case synopsis for each of those. Then we took a look at a number of, five i believe in total. We looked at those and determined sort of what exactly were they investigating, does this look like a false allegations of sex assault, or was it just a false official statement that happened during the investigation . Ask them what adverse actions you made in that case. We just decided to include that in the report as an additional adapt point. Putting the guidance out to the field. Dod i 649502. A definition that is broadly defined as circumstances associated with the set forth incident. False reporting is one of those concepts that is it a true false report when someone is saying something that is not true or not sufficient evidence. Those are two things. Eight cases out of the 154 as we identified as a false report. Typically when we close out a case, there is a distinction between the problem of cause. I would have two go back and see if they are all classified. Wewe had pulled through that tie period. False reporting to be collateral to the victim coming forward. I think that the intent of seeing our people reporting and now being punished. Getting to that kind of concept of how many of those cases are out there. Ephow many victims are accused f making a false report is a great data point. I have a question. It might make a difference to victims. How does collateral misconductay come to light . S e victim selfreports and says you should know that something happened or later on tells or the investigators uncover it somehow on their own. Or the accused makes an allegation. Accused of how the misconduct comes to light generally or maybe it is just all different ways. So many different ways. If you look at the highest percentage of underage drinking. That will come to light very early in the investigation. An alcohol facilitated Sexual Assault. It does not really require self reporting. Disciplinary proceedings. Someone being disciplined for fraternization. They make an allegation during it of Sexual Assault. Sometimes its third parties. Why we throw out a broad net on the term accused. It would have been better. The word accused has a very specific meaning. Just meaning someone is telling you youdi did something. Because of the broad ways, we try to pass. How the collateral misconduct came to light. For every single assault case we contacted the command. Did you take adverse action. We did not ask how they learned about it. Through the investigation or some sortth of command action. We approach it the same way. Coming to light in a number of different ways. Which way the command became aware of misconduct. About 70 of the time the allegation of the assault proceeded the misconduct. 30 of time where the command is aware or tracking some sort of issue with misconduct and then the Sexual Assault allegation was made after that. That is really the only way we broke that distinction. Adding how misconduct comes to light. Only to emphasize the earlier point that we only examine that in light of the temporal aspect, taking out those things that were already known that came to light asa the command directed investigation. Okay. I dont have anything else to add. We did not look or break out how that a report of misconduct came to. Since the number of people who actually received adverse consequences seems to be quite low across the services, that would mean that the bulk of people do not receive adverse consequences. Are your services tracking . I would think if they are part saof the low percent, well, this person did underage drinking. This is somehow retaliation. Let me start with you. Do you track that russia mark. We do not track that. Commanders need to be cognizant of seeking action. 60020 that encourages to wait until all the proceedings are done. Before considering whether to take action. It is also by dod regular requirement. Able to simply take action without going through some higher review process. It does not happen because it is an exercise of prosecutorial judgment. I see the larger issue here in this particular case. We trust those special level commanders to make that decision we have been tracking it. There is a low percentage of those pieces where there is an accusation. The broadest net possible identified with the misconduct. If you spread that across the size of our force, as large and as spread out, a very low percentage of an accusation of collateral misconduct. Not something to be tracked. It is something that we are aware of. Its something that makes a lot ofon sense. I concur with all of that. Not something that we track. At least not now. If thererr is collateral misconduct in the fact pattern of a particular case and whether a commander said not to take action, we do do not currently track that weird as far as ttracking where adverse actions taken, now that there is an ongoing requirement to record that, we will be tracking that. It was a very low number of cases. It is not a significant thing that happened. I agree with everything that was said earlier. The very low number of cases that we see would not include the informal type actions that may be taken by a squad leader or some type of other leader. For example, informally counseling or canceling their ucweekend plans as a response to collateral misconduct. It may be the case that victims have a different respect on the numbers than reported. They may feel adverse action was taken for collateral misconduct. It was something at a lower level that was not documented anywhere. I would echo what was said by the other services and add that e even though there was a polic, a very low incident of collateral misconduct. We tend to defer that to the end. At least anna dont delay. Victims that want the collateral misconduct addressed, that is not an issue at trial. Better addressed to one of my n colleagues. A victim would want, say, underage drinking. It is not an issue and does not cast any doubt on the accusation of Sexual Assault. We do not formally track, but as part of the uniform standards, we are adding them information into our Case Management system. Obviously Going Forward for purposes of this room we will track. Also, we will be adding into our system information about victims because all systems are accused based and we are not tracking victim data. We are interested to know, we have victim information officially and any related cases in the case notes about something that we are doing as a result of the 148 initiative. I think everything has been hit. Now tracking in any type of realtime other than for this report. Collateral m misconduct. Currently, no specific guidance. Maybe some ambiguity about what discretion for commanders to punish or false report or collateral misconduct. Going back to the very start. You have said, and, thank you all for going down the line. It really helps us understand that we do not assume one service agrees. Thank you for that. Lieutenant colonel wright at the beginning, you mentioned that you had tried to come up with some common ground. One thing you notice was some difference of opinion of those. Cultural differences. For example, adverse. Gave that as the example of maybe cultural differences of definition. I was just wondering if you could tell us a little bit more what you met that specific example. [inaudible] everyone agrees on certain definitions . Administrative profession proceedings. Things liket letters of reprimad that are filed or not filed. If you do not file it its not considered adverse. It is the equivalent of a counseling statement. If a soldier onth the ground considers it to be adverse then or they get a negative comment in an evaluation, we consider negative formal evaluations to be adverse information in their erpersonnel file. That is where there may be some differences. Some things are handled at the lowest level. It is not adverse under any systems definition but it may be perceived as adverse action against a victim. We are at our time. I want to thank you all for coming. Two years from now, you will use the same timeframe. The same group of offenses in the same definitions. Okay. Great. Thank you so much. We will now move on to our next aspanel. I believe that judge graham has joined us on the line. Is that correct . Judge graham, are you on the line . Defense secretary market joint steve of chaff chair scheduled to hold a News Conference at the pentagon. Our live coverage begins in about 15 minutes or so at 130 eastern on cspan. You can listen live with the free cspan radio app. Join us tonight for recent town hall meeting with freshman congresswoman katie porter. California democrat met with constituents in irvine california. Here is a preview. Where do i stand on the impeachment of donald trump . I came out in favor of impeaching donald trump because i believe [cheering and applause] i believe that no american, especially not a democratically elected can be above the rule of law. I made a video about this. I was one of the first people to flip the seat to come out on this. Well, you know, this might be risky. You might not might not get reelected. I am here to do what is right. Substantial evidence that he broke the law. It is in the molar report. I think we ought to hold him accountable. It says he must be defeated at the ballot box november 2020. Absolutely we do not know what the senate will do. We have to move forward on our legislative agenda. I guarantee you i go through everyone fully prepared to deal with the issue i am taking on. I am more than capable of making sure donald trump is being held capable at the same time im delivering gun violence prevention and Affordable Housing and all the challenges we are facing in our community. A brief portion with california freshman democrat katie porter. You can see the entire event tonight at nine eastern on cspan. Vice president pence chaired the meeting of the National Space council in virginia. The Vice President spoke about the importance of space expiration to both public and private sectors. Two hours and 10 minutes