THE NATIONWIDE ATTENTION given to the court of inquiry held for Commander Lloyd M. Bucher following North Korea's seizure of the Pueblo and the subsequent return of its crew has brought renewed interest in military codes of justice, court procedure, and the rights of the individual serviceman. In this study, Mr. Ulmer explores the American servicemen's right to counsel, comparing it with citizens' right in the civil courts.

The military emphasis on authority and obedience has led to the development of a code of justice that is, in many respects, different from that of the civil courts. Under the military code, the right to counsel for the serviceman has been more narrowly prescribed than that of his civilian counterpart. By examining the development of the right to counsel from 1787 to the present, Mr. Ulmer shows the extent to which one system has led or lagged behind the other.

Mr. Ulmer suggests that large numbers of draftees in the military during and following the Second World War have given impetus to the equalization of rights in the military and civil systems of justice, since these citizen soldiers, unaccustomed to military tradition and restive under its strictness, have brought pressure on Congress to bring about reform of military judicial procedure. Gradually, he shows, the right to counsel in the military is drawing closer to civil rights as these have been defined through such Supreme Court decisions as those handed clown in the Gideon, Escobedo, and Miranda cases.

The practical status of the right to counsel in the two systems is now fairly equivalent—with some advantages for an accused in each system. Mr. Ulmer points out that military counsel does not yet mean representation by an attorney in every instance, for the military holds that an accused person is often best represented by someone thoroughly conversant with military procedure and rights rather than one with formal legal training. This assumption continues to be challenged by those who believe military justice should be patterned on civil procedure. And recent legislation in Congress makes it more difficult for the military services to use nonlawyer counsel in courts-martial.