What happens if the guy, after joining the Army, then gets kicked out? Either by being too dumb/unruly/out of shape to get through basic training; by getting accidentally injured during training; or manages to get through the training but then does something to get discharged shortly afterwards (not something that would be an unfavorable discharge, just deemed unsuitable in some way.)
Does he go back before the judge and get sentenced to the time that he would have received if he hadn’t joined the Army, or what?
When Guerra’s attorney told the judge in the case that his client wanted to join the military, the judge gave Guerra a choice, Murphy said.
“The judge said, ‘Well, I’ll give you a conditional discharge: the condition is you join the military,’ ” Murphy said.
But Army regulations say that people facing pending charges are ineligible to enlist, said Army spokesman Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty.
“Army policy reflected in Army Regulation 601-210, paragraph 4-32a states ‘waiver is not authorized if a criminal or juvenile court charge is pending or if such a charge was dismissed or dropped at any stage of the court proceedings on condition that the offender enlists in a military service,’ ” Hilferty said in an e-mail response to questions.
Army recruiters are also banned from helping someone get out of pending charges by joining the Army, Hilferty said.
“It isn’t a new regulation. Not taking jailbirds has been our policy for decades,” he said.
Yes, I gather that it doesn’t happen now, but it used to be common. So what was the procedure, during those times, when the scenario I described happened.
Yes, my understanding is that the way this would work is either formally as a plea deal, or informally as a local judge who knows you keeping an eye out. With a formal plea, it would spell out that you’d need to join the Army (or other branch), be accepted, and serve out a term. So if the Army didn’t want you or you got yourself discharged (which was difficult then), you’d have voided the plea agreement just like if you agreed to testify for a plea but then refused to testify. If it was informal, then there might not be a written contract, but the cops would pick you up if you were around back in town and you’d end up in front of the judge.
On the other hand, back in the draft days the army wasn’t nearly as selective as ‘Selective Service’ would imply. If you couldn’t take orders after being worked over by drill sergeants and your fellow recruits, you’d get a discharge, but being dumb would likely just mean that you’d be a cook’s assistant or janitor or the like. I don’t think out of shape would matter, they’d just put you into PT until you were in good enough shape for regular basic training, which is pretty much what they do now for people in bad shape that they otherwise want in.
Also, “You can either join the Army or go to jail” was what Muhammed Ali said the draft board offered him, but from the other direction - that he’d either join the army or be sent to jail for refusing the draft. I would not be surprised if some of the uses of the phrase in the past were in reference to the choice of following the draft or not.
That is also my understanding – I should hope that style of a hometown judge/sheffiff simply keeping this in their back pocket to hang over your head would not work today(*). ISTM it would not be easy with a defendant who’d insist on it being put officially in writing and a recruiting/inprocessing staff who insisted in getting the whole truth: “so you say your charges were dropped… let’s call that judge and ask what happened”.
What may often happen these days is as in the report running coach linked, intent to enlist is brought before the court as part of the defense or the sentencing plea – either explicitly or implicitly communicating “Your honor, this young man intends to join the Service and defend our country. Giving him a felony record just because of this mistake would prevent that.”
Considering that deliberately lying about disqualifications in your enlistment is itself a crime, this risks the individual ending up with TWO sets of legal trouble instead of one. HOWEVER… it is widely understood that when there’s an enlistment shortage, no matter their protestations some recruiters will exercise de-facto “flexibility” such as not digging too deep with follow-up questions and letting the recruit know what is a just-satisfactory-enough answer to anything s/he’s asked.
(* that some courts seem to operate on an excessive presumption of what they can impose to grant a conditional release or suspension, would seem a broader issue to deal with)
A recruiter once told me about the gradual change in requirements as demand increased. There were different stages like “clean record”, “nothing after age 16”, “no felonies”, and “no serious felonies”.
Jimi Hendrix provided an example here according to several sources. He got arrested for riding in stolen cars, got given that deal, and washed out of the army in a year. AFAIK, he didn’t wind up doing jail time after getting discharged. A similar story is told about Jerry Garcia, but the car he stole was his mother’s, and it appears that the family pressured him to join the army or they’d have the DA press charges - it wasn’t a deal handed out by a judge.
Believe it or not, this does still happen, in a more limited way in the south. I was surprised to hear it, but that’s the case at least it was five years ago. The major problem is, that the military usually doesn’t want the guy or woman who is in that situation.
As far as I know, it was never a formal Court order. It was just something that happened during the preliminary hearings, the Judge would say something like “you should go join the Army son, and the case would be dismissed for other reasons as soon as the police were satisfied that the offender really had joined or was intending to join the military.
I understand that the modern US Military has regulations against this, but would not be surprised if during the manpower crunch of the 2000’s they were interpreted loosely.
I only know of one case personally, a friend of mine (who sadly is no longer with us). It was basically like AK84 described. This was during the Vietnam War era, and he had been a bit of a troublemaker growing up. I don’t remember exactly what he had done to end up in front of a judge, but it wasn’t a formal plea agreement. The Judge basically said that if he were to join the service that they wouldn’t bother going forward with any of the legal stuff and he wouldn’t have to worry about jail time. He joined the Marines, and ended up in Vietnam, and got some shrapnel in his backside (literally) at one point.
There was no formal agreement, and as far as the military was concerned there was no legal plea or legal action involved at all. From the military’s point of view he was just another volunteer. As for the legal case, I don’t know how the Judge checked to determine if he had actually joined the military or not, but at some point the case just quietly went away.
I had a Chief when I was in that was given the join or go to prison option in the 60s. He felt it worked out for the best. He served at least 20 years and made at least Chief, so it worked well enough in his case for the Navy also.
I went to boot camp Jan-Apr 1980, MCRD San Diego (Marine Corps). One of the guys in my platoon was given that option. We became friendly and he told me about it. I don’t remember his crime record but it was not overly violent. He graduated on time with the platoon and I lost track of hun after that. I still remember his name.
That’s one great thing about the military, that we rubbed elbows with people from all different walks of life, many I’d likely not interact with, normally.