Defense attorneys pleaded with the judge not to impose the punitive discharge that would strip his benefits.

"While that word 'dismissal' doesn't sound like much, that is a punitive discharge," she said.

The prosecutors said they had refrained from requesting a punitive discharge, which would have disqualified him from any retirement benefits, in deference to his wife.

Senator Blumenthal said he would introduce his own measure that would establish a victims' compensation system and mandatory punitive discharge for all sexual assault convictions.

Any punitive discharge adjudged by a Court-Martial is automatically reviewed by a military appellate court for each respective branch.

Prosecutors, who are seeking 18 years imprisonment and a punitive discharge without any veterans benefits, argued that Gutierrez played Russian roulette with his sexual partners' lives.

Moreover, the numbers of service members who are getting pushed out through adverse administrative actions or punitive discharges is likely to grow because the armed services are downsizing.

Cases involving a punitive discharge, dismissal, confinement for one year or more, or death will undergo automatic review by the appropriate military Court of Criminal Appeals.

All it would entail would be willing commanders at military installations allowing judges to accept plea arrangements that entail treatment programs in lieu of punitive discharges.

Punitive Discharges - Bad Conduct Discharge issued by either Special Court Martial or General Court Martial only.

Service members who are given a punitive discharge and have completed any adjudged confinement are normally placed on appellate leave pending final review of their cases by the appellate courts.

On October 2015, Visger "recommended that the charges be referred to a special court-martial and that a punitive discharge and confinement would be inappropriate given all the circumstances."

("Dismissal" is the only class of punitive discharge for U.S. commissioned officers; it is the equivalent of a dishonorable discharge, to which enlisted personnel may be sentenced.)

A service member who was adjudged a punitive discharge at a court martial and then dies before the appellate review process is complete is considered to have died on active duty under honorable conditions.

And when those troubled service members become troubled veterans — who, because of their punitive discharges may be denied certain veterans benefits — they are likely to create problems in civilian society, he contends.

For those service members who were convicted of sexual assault charges in 2011, the percentages of those punished through confinement, rank reduction, fines or punitive discharge or dismal were all up from the previous year.

Male convicts from all the services sentenced to punitive discharge and incarceration longer than 7 years are confined at the third-tier - the maximum-security U. S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

By Presidential Proclamation 4313, President Ford created a procedure for those military personnel who resisted against the Vietnam War to receive a Presidential Pardon and have their punitive discharges changed to a Clemency Discharge.

Coast Guard Court of Criminal Appeals These courts review all cases in which the approved sentence includes death, a punitive discharge, or confinement for at least a year, and all cases referred to it by the service Judge Advocate General.

Now a senior military prosecutor at Fort Benning, Ga., is arguing that the same concept be applied to the military’s judicial system so that judges can sentence service members to treatment programs rather than automatically issuing punitive discharges that put them on the street without benefits.