colonel christensen served in the air force for 23 years, but his military career would come to an ends in the fallout over one case. as chief prosecutor of the air force, the colonel was ordered to italy in 2012 to try a senior officer accused of sexually assaulting a physician s assistant. he convinced the jury of this man s guilt. but miles an hour months later. with the stroke of a pen, air force lieutenant colonel james wilkerson, an f-16 fighter pilot was freed from a navy brig after only about four months, his conviction tossed out. the man who freed him, his commanding officer, left hand general craig franklin. a shocking turn of events that sent congress into a tailspin. my heart is beating past right now, i am so upset about this. there was pressure from leadership that i support the process and support the general. and i refused to do that.
tailhook is a perfect example of where command is actually part of the problem. the highest ranking admiral in the navy had attended. he had gone to some of the party rooms. the secretary of navy was there. so at the very highest level, they knew their aviators were out of control. colonel christensen has always had a strong sense of justice. and it propelled him into a role that was very different from generations of military men before him. knew i wanted to be a lawyer. and the air force gave me a great opportunity to do that. as a young lawyer, the colonel had to start somewhere. early on, he worked as defense counsel, representing service members accused in sexual assault cases. were you winning a lot of your cases at the time? yes. and you know, that s not unique to me. the defense dominates in sexual assault cases in the military. by the time someone is investigated, by the time a decision has been made to charge somebody, the odds are most of the people you defend are gu
as a lawyer, colonel christensen witnessed this kind of bias firsthand. and after years of representing the accused he felt he had to make a change. i could not stands up in court again and call a woman a liar that i believed was telling the truth. from that point on, the colonel primarily worked as a prosecutor and a judge. and in 2010 was named chief prosecutor of the air force. but, to his frustration, he rarely found himself representing sexual assault victims. few cases ever reached his desk. it is a pattern of inaction that continues today n. 2020, the u.s. armed forces investigated 5,640 allegations of sexual assault. of those, only 4% went to trial. and in the end, there were only 156 convictions. why are conviction rates so low? poor investigations, the wrong people making decisions.
crimes. tailhook is a perfect example of where command is actually part of the problem. the highest ranking admiral in the navy had attended. he had gone to some of the party rooms. the secretary of navy was there. so at the very highest level, they knew their aviators were out of control. colonel christensen has always had a strong sense of justice. and it propelled him into a role that was very different from generations of military men before him. knew i wanted to be a lawyer. and the air force gave me a great opportunity to do that. as a young lawyer, the colonel had to start somewhere. early on, he worked as defense counsel, representing service members accused in sexual assault cases. were you winning a lot of your cases at the time? yes. and you know, that s not unique to me. the defense dominates in sexual assault cases in the military. by the time someone is investigated, by the time a decision has been made to charge