Photo By Seaman Apprentice Joseph Miller | Legalman 1st Class Marisa Carter, left, and Chief Legalman Tara Harris, discuss legal...... read more read more
Subscribe
Nestled between the mess decks, on the starboard side of the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69) lies the legal department office, which is operated by Sailors equipped with the tools to provide every Sailor the legal assistance they need.
“We provide an array of legal support to the command and Sailors,” said Legalman 1st Amanda King, who arrived on Ike earlier this year. “The legalmen provide administrative support for investigations, legal assistance and are able to notarize documents. We sign a lot of powers of attorney as well.”
While they primarily work on internal naval legal matters, the legalmen must also work with their civilian counterparts.
“We communicate quite a lot with our civilian counterparts in courthouses as a number of cases we work on deal with civilian charges,” said King.
When they communicate to the civilian courts, the legalmen, such as Legalman 2nd Class Dionesha Simmons, try to provide help to their shipmates when they have court dates but are underway at the time.
“For civilian courts, we track cases in civilian courts and provide court excusal letters for members who have court dates while the ship is in an operational status,” said Simmons.
Along with helping Sailors, they also provide legal assistance to the commanding officer.
“For the CO, we provide protection in all his legal matters,” said King. “We also make sure everything he does is ethical in a legal sense.”
The protections the legalmen provide to the CO help advise him on how to apply the rules and regulations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
Legalmen also assist the command by enforcing disciplinary actions and punishments that their shipmates receive after breaking the law.
“We assist in disciplinary actions, which come to us from reports given by security department, the chain of command, or the Naval Criminal Investigative Service,” said King. “Depending on the severity of the charges, we set up the various mast types.”
Legalmen also track separations, which are not necessarily disciplinary, and other statistics on Sailors.
“I am responsible for the preparation and processing of all administrative separations to include administrative separation boards,” said Simmons. “Also, I manage and track all unauthorized absences and desertions for the command.”
To get the training for the services they provide on a ship and on the laws they must know, legalmen must go through the Legalman Paralegal Education Program. This course requires Sailors to complete a unique task while attending the Legalman Accession (‘A’) school.
“The unique thing about our ‘A’ school is that the Navy pays for us to get our associate’s degrees, as it is mandatory for us to have,” said King. “We do an 11-week course on naval law and military justice, then we take four weeks of college courses to get our degrees.”
The classes include serval topics involving both maritime and operational law.
“During legalman ‘A’ school, I had training on military justice and began college courses towards my paralegal degree to include Criminal law for the Paralegal, Intro to Law, Legal Research and Writing, and Legal Ethics just to name a few,” said Simmons. “And with this rate I am constantly learning new information each and every day.”
Sailors can feel confident in the legalmen’s abilities to assist Sailors, as well as the command, thanks to this advanced training.
“All in all, we are here to make sure due process is followed here on Ike,” said King. “We are here to make sure the actions that Sailors take are legal in all cases.”
| Date Taken: | 02.11.2020 |
| Date Posted: | 05.11.2020 02:56 |
| Story ID: | 369672 |
| Location: | ATLANTIC OCEAN |
| Web Views: | 101 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Ike Legal: Guilty of Excellence, by SA Joseph Miller, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
