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Lawyers Military Defense Committee
The Lawyers Military Defense Committee (LMDC) was a non-profit legal organization founded in 1970〔; Massachusetts Secretary of State file #000012927.〕 by a group concerned that military members serving in Vietnam were unable to exercise their right to civilian counsel in courts-martial. LMDC existed for six years (1970–76) – two years in the combat zone of Vietnam, and for four years amidst disciplinary clashes inside US military forces in West Germany (with additional military cases in the Philippines and Italy). During this period high caliber civilian representation and counseling by a cohort of young attorneys were provided free of charge country-wide, in often challenging and controversial cases for hundreds of service members, including scores of trial and post-trial proceedings. Initial logistical obstacles in Vietnam were ultimately resolved satisfactorily, so that communications with clients (and prospective clients), other counsel, and the court could be accomplished pursuant to newly issued U.S. Army regulations, as were needs for access to military transport, billeting, and research facilities. In almost every instance representation by LMDC lawyers was welcomed by assigned military counsel. LMDC’s operations in a war zone were unique. No undertaking of its kind has appeared in subsequent US conflicts.
== Founding ==
In early 1970, from previous experiences at Clark Air Base in the Philippines where she observed the need for independent legal counsel for U.S. overseas military personnel, donor Anne Peretz set in motion the creation of LMDC. A board of directors of noted academic and civil rights attorneys was formed, including Harvard Law School professor Charles Nesson, professor John H. Mansfield (also of Harvard), ACLU general counsel Norman Dorsen, ACLU legal director Melvin Wulf, Indiana University law professor Edward F. Sherman, and Boston civil liberties attorney William Homans. (Quaker peace activist, May Bye, subsequently joined the board with the opening of the LMDC office in West Germany.) Other supporters were former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Justice Department official Burke Marshall, and Dean Abraham Goldstein of the Yale Law School. The aim of the office focused on representing military clients whose cases raised issues of dissent (e.g., conscientious objection and protests against the war), racism, constitutional rights, and command influence.〔“Liberties in Vietnam: Defending the Troops,” Mansfield, John H., ''Civil Liberties: Publication of the American Civil Liberties Union'', Number 284, Feb/1972. Mansfield described the rationale for LMDC in the following terms: “The charge has been made by a writer in the Armed Forces Journal that civilian lawyers and LMDC in particular, by making servicemen more aware of their rights and ready to press new legal theories, have contributed to the collapse of the armed forces in Vietnam. This accusation must not go unanswered for it entirely misconstrues the function of law both in the armed forces and society at large. The purpose of the military justice system is not simply to add muscle to a commander’s arbitrary fiat. It exists both to assure good order in the armed forces and to protect the basic rights of all their members, to assure them of procedural fairness, to stand as a bulwark against arbitrary power, vindictiveness, and stupid mistakes. When it functions in this fashion it earns for the services the loyalty and support of their members. It gives servicemen the assurance that as individuals they will not be trampled upon and invariably sacrificed to supposed organizational interests…. From this perspective, an intelligently and conscientiously administered military justice system, with vigorous advocacy by both prosecution and defense, is no enemy to the armed forces. Rather, it can be one of the elements that saves them from the serious demoralization that now prevails and leads back to union with the civilian community from which ultimately they must derive their strength and reason for existence. The purpose of civilian advocacy is not to break down the armed forces as an organization capable of performing the important tasks entrusted to them, but to enable them to perform these tasks in a manner that conforms to their own highest ideals and fundamental norms of the Constitution."〕
抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』
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