Electronic Abridged Winthrop's Military Law and Precedents
Editor’s Introduction
Most military justice practitioners have heard of Colonel William Winthrop’s Military Law and Precedents. This nineteenth-century treatise is still frequently cited by the military appellate courts,1 and has been called “a masterpiece of painstaking scholarship, brilliant erudition, and lucid prose.”2 However, the disappearance of the printed law library in many military legal offices has made it less likely than ever that the attorney in the field could actually inform her efforts by reference to Military Law and Precedents. With this set of circumstances in mind, the military judges of the U.S. Army’s Fifth Judicial Circuit set out to bring Military Law and Precedents to a new generation of practitioners via the Internet. Their primary goal was to make an abridged edition of this classic work available to military attorneys who were seeking to incorporate a historical perspective in their consideration of contemporary military justice issues. The documents that you are about to examine are the result of 18 months of effort toward that end by military judges, court reporters, and legal specialists.
This electronic abridgement of Military Law and Precedents includes only Part I of the second edition, which Colonel Winthrop entitled “Military Law.” Those portions of that edition dealing with the “Law of War” and “Civil Functions and Relations of the Military” have been omitted in this abridgement, as they are less likely to be relevant to the contemporary military justice practitioner. The editors have also deleted many footnotes found in the original that they determined were unlikely to be helpful to the attorney in the field, and all footnotes were converted to endnotes to improve the readability of the final product. While some typographical changes were made to Colonel Winthrop’s prose, the substance of the text remains unchanged from the second edition.3
In closing, I would like to say a special word of thanks to those individuals without whom this project could not have succeeded: Colonel Kenneth Clevenger, Lieutenant Colonel Donna Wright, Sergeant First Class Patricia Chumbley, and Sergeant Glenn Richardson. Their tireless effort on this project was in addition to their routine duties within the Fifth Judicial Circuit, and reflects great credit upon themselves and the Judge Advocate General’s Corps. I would also like to thank Colonel Peter E. Brownback III, Retired, and Colonel Gary Smith for their forbearance and support in connection with this project.
WILLIAM T. BARTO
Lieutenant Colonel
Editor-in-Chief
1 See, e.g., United States v. Norfleet, 53 M.J. 262 (2000); United States v. Quintanilla, 52 M.J. 839 (Army Ct. Crim. App. 2000); United States v. Quiroz, 53 M.J. 600 (N.M. Ct. Crim. App. 2000).
2 Honorable Andrew S. Effron, Military Justice: The Continuing Importance of Historical Perspective, Army Law., June 2000, at 1, 7 (quoting Wiener quoting Fratcher).
3 Please report all errors, typographical or substantive, to the Editor-in-Chief at bartow@cmtymail.26asg.army.mil. Thank you.