Powers as to Officers. Power as to non-commissioned Officers and soldiers, As officers are amenable to these courts martial only, and as the penalties which they are subject to will be noticed when treating of the sentence, it will not be necessary in stating the distinctive power and jurisdiction of general courts martial, to do more than shortly to recapitulate the punishments applicable by them for military crimes to warrant and non-commissioned officers and soldiers, and briefly to refer to the offences declared cognizable by them. 3 A general court martial may, for certain military offences, sentence a soldier to death:' for similar offences,' and those comprehended by the term embezzlement, to transportation: for all offences punishable by death, to general service; and also to general service, for the offences declared from the thirty-ninth to the forty-second, and from the forty-sixth to the fiftieth articles inclusive; namely, for malingering, feigning disease; self-mutilation; tampering with eye-sight; stealing from a comrade or military officer, or military or regimental mess; frauds arising from false description-books and records; false return, report or statement of stores, with a view to fraud, or to connive thereat; evading orders of her majesty on the foregoing points; committing a petty offence of a felonious or fraudulent nature to the injury of, (1) 6 to 17 Art. War, inclusive. (2) Mut. Act, Sec. 7. (3) Mut. Act, Sec. 8. 18 Art. War. (4) It appears that the royal prerogative in the articles of 1830, for the first time, was employed to declare general service a punishment applicable to offences not made so punishable by the mutiny act. The mutiny act places transportation and general service on the same footing; either punishment may, by virtue of it, be awarded for any offence made capital, but not, it is imagined, for any other. In fact, the present mutiny act only speaks of general service as a substitute for death.-Mut. Act, Sec. 7. or with intent to injure any person, civil or military; and for other disgraceful conduct, being of a cruel, indecent, or unnatural kind. A general court martial may award corporal punishment,' not exceeding two hundred lashes," imprisonment to any extent, with or without hard labour, and solitary confinement in any public prison or other place which the court, or the officer commanding the corps to which the offender may belong or be attached, may appoint ;3 but the mutiny act (sec. 7) provides that the solitary confinement awarded by a general court martial may not exceed one month at a time, or three months at different times, with intervals of not less than one month between such times, in one year; also, as an additional punishment for immorality, misbehaviour or neglect of duty, ferfeiture of all advantage as to additional pay whilst serving, and to pension on discharge, either retrospectively as accruing from former service; or absolutely, whether this advantage accrued from past or might accrue from future services as a second additional punishment for desertion, to be marked with the letter D (such letter not being less than half an inch long) below the left arm pit, unless the offender be already so marked: as an additional punishment for drunkenness, to deprivation of liquor when issued in kind, or beer or liquor money and pay, as particularized in the fifty-first article of war, (1) See the remarks as to corporal punishment, under the head of Sentence. (2) 72 Art. War. (3) See the remarks on imprisonment, under Sentence. (4) Mut. Act, Sec. 7. (5) Mut. Act, Sec. 11. which will be further noticed when referring to that offence; also, deprivation of a penny a day, for any period not exceeding thirty days, for drunkenness on parade or on the line of march.' This court may recommend, not award, that a with ignominy. soldier convicted of disgraceful conduct may be discharged with ignominy, provided he be first sentenced to lose all claim to pension. May recom mend discharge Warrant officers. Non-commissioned officers. A warrant officer cannot be sentenced to corporal punishment, nor be reduced to serve in an inferior situation, unless he originally enlisted as a private soldier, and continued in the service until his appointment as a warant officer.' A non-commissioned officer may be suspended or degraded, and, in addition to the punishments above recited, may be reduced to the ranks. Degradation is, perhaps, never resorted to at the present period, and suspension but seldom. Suspension has probably been allowed to become nearly obsolete from the facility with which a commanding officer may restore a deserving soldier to his rank as a non-commissioned officer; but as this reason does not attach to the artillery, where a non-commissioned officer, once reduced to the ranks, can never be restored by his immediate commanding officer; and, by the custom of the service, never is by an application to the master-general of the ordnance, who alone possesses the power; it is perhaps still desirable that this punishment should be retained. The reduction of a non-commissioned officer to the ranks, by a general court martial, depends on the usages of the service; it is remarkable, that not only the present but former articles of war provided for the reduction of non-commissioned officers by regimental courts martial, but left the power of general courts martial, in this respect, to custom. It is also observable, that the articles of war since 1830 give the power of putting a soldier under stoppages, not exceeding two-thirds of his pay, for any loss or damage arising from misconduct, to district' and regimental' courts martial; but that such power is not expressly extended to general courts martial. The articles of war of 1829 were altogether silent in this respect; but previous articles afforded the power, to an extent of half the soldier's pay, to general as well as regimental courts martial. as to offences. The offences expressly declared cognizable by Jurisdiction a general court martial, without restriction as to the place of commission, and which cannot, consequently, be tried by a district, or garrison, or regimental, or detachment (in the nature of regimental) court martial, except by permission of the general or superior officer, (excepting also mutiny on the line of march; and desertion, when charged as absence without leave, as before particularized,) may be concisely described thus: Art. 6.-Mutiny; sedition; misprision of mutiny: 8.-Relieving the enemy: 9.-Misbehaviour before the enemy; abandoning the same: 10.-Leaving post in search of plunder: 11.-Violence to a superior officer in the execu- 12.-Disobedience to the lawful command of a Offences cogni. zable in foreign only. Martial The jurisdiction of general courts martial parts by General alone, in foreign parts, extends to the following offences, which cannot therefore, in foreign parts, be tried by courts of inferior jurisdiction, without the consent of the general or superior officer : Offences cogni- Court Martial. Art. 13.-Violence to bringer of provisions; forcing a 16.-Casting away arms or ammunition in pre- 17.-Quitting, or sleeping on, post.1 The offences declared punishable by a general, or district or garrison court martial, and therefore not to be submitted to a regimental, or detachment (in the nature of regimental) court martial, without the approbation of the superior officer first formally obtained, are: Art. 3.-Profaning place of worship; violence to chaplain or minister : 19. Traitorous or disrespectful words against any of the royal family: 20.-Persuading to desert; entertaining and not reporting deserter : 21.-Drunkenness on duty under arms : 22.-Breaking confinement : 23.-Sending unauthorized flag of truce: 24.-Giving a parole or watchword different from that received: 25.-Spreading reports in the field, calculated to create unnecessary alarm: 26.-Using words tending to create alarm in action: 27.-Producing injurious effects to an army in the field, by improper disclosures: (1) See remarks on 17 Article,-post. |