05/24/2026
Soldiers being court-martialed at Vilseck Army Base (Rose Barracks) in rural Bavaria have burdens their stateside counterparts don’t:
The investigation is often handled jointly by German Polizei and Army CID. Polizei can’t be relied on to investigate a US Soldier objectively for alleged crimes committed against Germans. They will often decline requests to follow leads that might clear the Soldier’s name. MPs and CID might do a better job in that regard, but they can’t be trusted either. An accused Soldier in Germany needs to be aware of steps the Polizei skipped and insist that the MPs or CID run them down.
For hearings and courts-martial, the witnesses might be scattered across Europe, deployment areas, or CONUS locations. Some might be German civilians. Whenever possible, the military will want everyone to testify by VTC to save money. That means a low-quality video feed coming through the courtroom audio/visual system at a time when the Soldier’s entire well-being is on the line.
Medical evidence in a child s*x offense case might have to be obtained through German medical providers. That can be a stubborn process and requires reliable translation when it comes to highly sensitive and particular issues.
As for the Soldier’s defense, a JAG counsel through Trial Defense Services won’t be appointed during the investigation. The Soldier will be on his own for months, maybe more than a year. TDS steps in when formal charges are preferred. But the most important weeks of the case are the ones before that, when the Soldier is on his own. All of that time passes without an attorney intervening with CID, advocating with OSTC, and answering the client’s questions.
And then the TDS attorney who picks the case up is luck of the draw, whoever gets assigned, often a captain two or three years out of law school.
Gagne, Scherer & Associates has been handling Army courts-martial in Germany since the GWOT, when Soldiers were deploying constantly and allegations from downrange came back to Vilseck for prosecution, or when Soldiers got into deep trouble blowing off steam after a few months in the desert. Gagne, Scherer & Associates is transparent about what it costs to hire our former JAGs, publishes its fees online, and doesn’t impose a surcharge for cases overseas.
We get into how OSTC cases actually develop at Vilseck, why the Article 32 is the most important pre-trial event in any OSTC case, and a couple of examples of how the firm’s courts-martial defense of US Soldiers in Germany have actually played out: assault in town with German witnesses, child s*x offense with German medical evidence, and the witness-scattered-across-Europe case where we secured in-person testimony.
If you're at Vilseck and CID or German police have made contact, read this: https://ucmjlawyers.com/army-bases/vilseck-germany-lawyer/
Facing UCMJ charges at Vilseck or USAG Bavaria? Gagne, Scherer & Associates defends soldiers in Germany facing Article 32 and OSTC court-martial cases.
