Major Christopher C. Lozo, USAF
Each year the USAF prosecutes approximately 35 retirement-eligible members; 15 of them eventually receive a punitive discharge at trial. While the overall numbers are not significant, the people behind those numbers are. During my tenure as a trial and defense counsel, I have prosecuted or defended four of those individuals. The military justice system owes it to its members to ensure that justice is done in all cases. Each military member facing a court-martial deserves to be punished for the offenses committed. Sometimes, a punitive discharge with loss of retirement pay is the entirely appropriate result at trial. Sometimes it is not. This paper is the result of my belief that the determination of whether members ought to forfeit their retirement pay should be left to the wise discretion of the sentencing authority and the convening authority, not to vague notions of collateral consequences.
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