Deans denied he assaulted Fisher but acknowledged in the U.S. settlement “the evidence may prove otherwise,” according to documents provided by his attorney, Alex Flynn. “Mr. Deans has paid that dollar and the matter is now concluded,” Flynn said.
Not for Fisher, who became an advocate for rape victims in Japan. “Governments get out there and say, ‘We are against rape, and we are doing everything we can,' but in fact they are not,” she said. “And by not allowing rape victims to receive justice, it's just going on in the same pattern.”
After a long and contentious debate, Congress late last year passed numerous changes to the military's legal system in an effort to combat the epidemic of sexual assaults.
The defense policy bill scaled back but did not eliminate the role senior commanders play in sexual assault cases. Officers who have the power to convene courts-martial were stripped of their authority to overturn guilty verdicts reached by juries, and should they decline to prosecute a case, a review of the decision must be conducted by the service's civilian secretary.
The argument for keeping commanders involved in sexual assault cases received a boost from a panel of experts, which said last month that there is no evidence that removing commanders from the process will reduce sex crimes or increase the reporting of them.
“I don't know how we can trust our commanders to train our sons and daughters to fight and win our nation's war and yet not trust them to provide and establish a command climate that provides each and every soldier a safe working environment,” said retired Gen. Ann Dunwoody, the Army's first female four-star.
Gillibrand and her supporters argue that the cultural shift needed to lower the incidence of sexual assault in the military won't happen if commanders retain their current role in the legal system.
“Skippers have had this authority since the days of John Paul Jones and sexual assaults still occur,” said Lory Manning, a retired Navy captain and senior fellow at the Women in the Military Project. “And this is where we are.”
