[Icelander]

Originally Posted by thrash

Military prisoners are not service members for the duration of their sentence -- they are prisoners. They don't have rank, receive no pay or benefits, and (inter alia) don't wear any military insignia. Any sentence served is in addition to their contracted enlistment. If the offense is serious enough to warrant incarceration at Fort Leavenworth it probably includes a dishonorable discharge, however, effective immediately upon release.

They seem to be ranked as E-1, albeit without pay and allowances. Most importantly, they can be charged with insubordination to the 31E NCOs in the USDB.

After the sentence is up, dishonourable discharge will generally kick in, yes.

Originally Posted by thrash

CID is the Criminal Investigation Division -- think detectives. Once they present their evidence at trial, they are out of the picture. There is an entire MOS within the Military Police trained for prison work, as well as POW and displaced civilian operations in wartime. They would be the ones transporting any military prisoners.

Are you sure that 31Es are the ones who transport lone witnesses or defendants (who happen to be soldiers convicted by court martial) to trial or the custody of another authority? The job is generally performed by 1811 Criminal Investigators in civilian federal agencies, who very much are detectives. They may have uniformed assistance, but there is generally a suit-wearing Special Agent (and partner, often) who is responsible for the prisoner.

Originally Posted by thrash

It is almost certainly logistically simpler for the Disciplinary Barracks to arrange a secure interview room in their own facility and have DHS (or whoever) come to visit the prisoner there, than to transport him somewhere else. (Of course, if the investigation requires the fixed Alien Mind Reading Squids facility in Area 51, that would change things.)

Well... no AMRS facility, but the DHS would really prefer to be able to perform some medical checks which they don't want to discuss with the DOD more than necessary.*

And given that the PCs are being sent for specifically because an operation where the DOD took the lead fell apart, apparently due to security breaches, the DHS has a pretty big stick to beat their counterparts in the DOD with for the moment. Having a US Army Special Forces detachment go AWOL in Mexico is pretty embarrassing for the military, after all, especially as it seems to have been a direct act of mutiny led by a full-bird Colonel.

*The DOD has sent personnel to the joint task force responsible for dealing with the fall-out of Project Jade Serenity and may thus be considered to have a pretty good idea of what is going on, but the people who are acting as handlers to the PCs seem to distrust the US Army and the Department of Defense in an almost pathological fashion.

Originally Posted by thrash

The psych wards in military hospitals are not set up for long term care. As far as I know, a patient declared permanently incompetent would receive a psych discharge and be turned over to whatever mental hospital is handy. Someone who poses a national security risk -- given what he knew before he cracked -- might be sent to St. Elizabeth's for special safekeeping.

That's just what I assumed. Pvt. Sherilyn Bell was indeed sent to a (fictional) federal satellite facility of St. Elizabeths which is still operating in the campaign world.

Most of the wings of our fictional Manhanock Asylum for the Criminally Insane are empty, but there are still a few inmates being treated there. Sadly, a case might be made that effective treatment is secondary to considerations of isolating individuals with severe mental disorders who formerly had Top Secret or even Top Secret - SCI clearance.

Manhanock was co-located with a military facility, including some biological research laboratories, observation towers, bunkers and a Coast Guard dock and refueling post, from WWII. The research labs were mothballed around 2000 and the facility remained inactive DOD property until the creation of the Department of Homeland Security some three years later, at which time the abandoned facility was transfered to the DHS along with other Coast Guard facilities.

From what Dr. Michael Anderson (PC) knows, it seems that when the MK-Ultra experiments became public in 1977, the DOD tightened security around their own similar experiments, but did not entirely abandon programs designed to develop nootropic drugs yielding various cognative and sensory enhancements. Manhanock was the center for such research from 1978-1998.

Pvt. Sherilyn Bell, while catatonic at the time which her trial was set and apparently quite insane even now, 17 years later, possesses knowledge of the TS-SCI Project Jade Serenity, drug trials on highly motivated and physically healthy US Army volunteers under realistic military training conditions, which grew out of the programs in Manhanock. This knowledge unfortunately includes knowledge of criminal acts committed by her superiors, only some of whom have been punished administratively and none of whom have been indicted.

Even if most of them have resigned their commissions, disappeared into obscurity and/or apparently left the country, disclosure of some of what Pvt. Bell knows to anyone who would be considered a credible source by the media would be extremely embarrassing.

Originally Posted by thrash

Murder and manslaughter are punishable "as a court martial may direct," up to and including death or life in prison for premeditated murder or murder in commission of some other major crime (rape, etc.). If premeditation can't be proved, the prosecutor will probably try for a manslaughter conviction.

I determined that a similar crime resulted in 30 years imprisonment for a real-world service member and decided to go with that for (former) SFC Mackenzie Chase Taylor.