Truth: When it comes to military law, geography is far less important than skill and experience. Your lawyer has to have a thorough knowledge of military law and the military mindset. He should have had a lot of experience prosecuting and defending cases in the military. Qualified military attorneys will be admitted to practice at all US military courts and installations and will have a lot of experience representing people all over the country and overseas. Until a military case gets into the courtroom, almost all the work is done by phone, fax, and email, so your attorney will only need to be present if your case goes to court, and the attorney can fly in for that. In fact, when we were defense attorneys in the military, many of our clients were at other bases and we had absolutely no trouble giving them excellent representation. If your case goes to court, your attorney needs to know how to win a tough case by fighting it in the courtroom, and he can’t be afraid to do a case in front of a jury. If your attorney is right across the street from you but doesn’t have these other attributes, it doesn’t do you much good. Geography should not be a main concern.

Truth: There are a lot of lawyers advertising services to military members but not all of these attorneys have military experience. There is no requirement that a lawyer has to have been in the military or be admitted to practice in military courts in order to advertise for military clients. Be sure that the attorney you hire has broad experience with the military, both in terms of life experience and legal credentials.

Truth: If you get an attorney, things will go harder for the government. When they try to intimidate you out of hiring a good military attorney, they are trying to make their own lives easier. They might promise things will go easier on you, but notice how they never put their promises in writing. Get a lawyer.

Truth: They already think you’re guilty. You may be innocent, and it’s natural to want to explain yourself and convince someone that you’re innocent, but you take a tremendous risk whenever you try to talk yourself out of a legal problem. They don’t want to hear your side of the story, unless you’re admitting that you’re guilty. Make no statements until you have talked to an experienced military attorney.

Truth: You can’t always trust the science of a drug test. There are many ways to challenge a military drug test. Tests are administered by human beings, and people make mistakes. Labs make mistakes. Machines make mistakes. Some positive results are “false positives.” Sometimes a valid prescription can make a person test positive for an illegal drug. You need an attorney who understands all these things, isn’t afraid of a positive test, and knows how to cross-examine the government’s toxicologist.

Truth: Commanders will place a lot of faith in the test results, so you should never try to explain your side of the story without the help of an attorney who has a lot of experience with this kind of case. When people in authority ask you to guess what could have gone wrong with your test -- or with any allegation of wrongdoing -- they could be trying to trap you into saying something they'll use against you later. If you are told that you have failed a drug test, or are suspected of doing anything wrong, talk to an experienced military attorney before you make any statement.

Truth: Even if you have made a statement it might not be too late to save your case. If you made a statement, you need to work with an attorney who understands the psychology of an interrogation and who knows how investigators work. You need an attorney who can cross-examine an investigator so that your statement isn’t misused at your trial. And you need an attorney who knows how to try to keep that statement from coming into the trial in the first place. Just because someone in the government calls your statement a “confession,” that doesn’t mean it is one under the law. Consult an experienced military attorney before giving up.

Truth: You have heard that anything you say can and will be used against you. Interrogations are designed to get confessions, not to get you out of trouble. If investigators think you broke the law, they’re going to do their best to get you to admit it, and just about anything you say can be twisted to make it sound like you’re guilty. Investigators are allowed to lie, trick, and use psychology to intimidate you. You can keep denying that you did anything wrong, but they don’t just let you go if you say you didn’t do it. They’ll keep at it until you make a statement they like, or until you demand a lawyer. Demand a lawyer first, and don’t make any statements until you have talked to an experienced military attorney.

Truth: This is often an empty threat. Subpoenas aren’t automatic. If the government had enough for a subpoena, and if they really wanted to get one, they probably would have gotten it already, to use in case you refuse to cooperate. Even if the government get a subpoena issued, many subpoenas get ignored, especially when it comes to phone and internet records. The government uses a lot of empty threats:

• Your friends have told us everything, so you might as well come clean
• We know what you did and we have all the evidence we need
• We have witnesses who saw you (or heard you)
• We have your DNA
• We have all your old emails
• We have records of everything you’ve done on the internet
• This is your last chance to tell us your side of the story

Whether the statements are true or not, the investigators are trying to pressure you into saying something they can use against you. There is no good reason to talk to them without your attorney by your side.

Truth: If you invoke your rights and make no statements, no one in authority can make you answer questions about your case. Needless to say, this is frustrating to investigators and the prosecution, who rely on your incriminating statements as the bedrock of their case against you. To get around this rule, it is a common investigative practice for the government to send friends and others to attempt to question you about your case and get you to say something that will get you into trouble. One method is the "pretext phone call," where a friend, victim, or other person will call you from an investigator’s office, where your conversation will be taped. Often, the investigator feeds questions to this person, questions the investigator cannot ask you directly. Whatever you say during that call will be used as evidence against you. This is why it is vital not to make any statements to anyone about your case, except your attorney.

Truth: Many lawyers are timid about fighting a case in the courtroom and are especially nervous about having to try it in front of a jury. While there are times when it makes more sense for the client to go with a judge to do the trial, we typically see better results with juries. Even cases that look like “sure losers” can turn out better for the client by going with a jury. Trial work isn’t for squeamish attorneys. When choosing a military attorney, make sure the attorney is comfortable trying jury cases and fighting cases that look hopeless.

Truth: That’s true for a few people, but not everyone can avoid going back to their installation. A related myth is that by going to these installations you’ll automatically avoid a court-martial and jail time. This is very dangerous advice but we know that a lot of service members are being told exactly that. By making the wrong move you could find yourself in jail, or facing a longer wait than you expected. AWOL and Desertion are complicated matters, serious crimes, and you need to talk to an experienced military attorney if you’re absent from your unit.

Truth: Often, a service member will accept a deal that includes an Other Than Honorable Conditions discharge, believing that it gets automatically upgraded in six months. This is false. It’s true that several months after separation a member can petition to have the discharge upgraded, but it’s a complicated process and the odds are always very long against getting the upgrade. An OTH can have serious consequences for your future. Talk to a good military attorney before accepting any deal that includes an OTH.