Defense investigators

Service members facing courts martial are often choosing to hire a private investigator to assist them in their defense. This is a relatively new development in military law. In large part the increase is due to the fact that, more often than ever, military investigators are investigating with the goal of finding evidence against their suspect instead of investigating to find the truth. Perhaps the area were this type of investigating is most noticeable is in rape cases where investigators often will not look for evidence to suggest that the alleged victim is not really a victim at all. However, in all types of cases potentially exculpatory evidence is either deliberately ignored or simply not developed.
A defense investigator is a valuable asset to a defense team because the investigator is able to search for and develop ignored or missed exculpatory evidence. In a perfect world, this would not be necessary, but more and more often defense investigators are conducting their own investigations and discovering evidence that the military did not. Sometimes this evidence changes the outcome of a case.
When looking for an investigator for a military case, it is important to find someone that has experience with the military. The military has a lot of unique ways of doing things and someone that is not familiar with the military may miss things. It also tends to help if the investigator was in the military. Service members are often more open to veterans than they are to people who have never served. It is important to talk to your attorney about hiring an investigator as well. Any experienced criminal attorney will know some good investigators and the attorney and the investigator must be able to work together well to provide the best possible defense.