Looking for clarification of jury rulings at the end of A Few Good Men

Let's look at what they were charged with

Docket number 411275. VR-5. United States versus Lance Corporal Harold W. Dawson and Private First Class Loudon Downey.

Defendants are charged with Conspiracy to Commit Murder, Murder in the First Degree, and Conduct Unbecoming a United States Marine.

^Screenplay

So...now let's look at what Murder in the First Degree means (allowing for minor differences in the UCMJ*).

*^{For which see this excellent answer}

First-degree murder: any intentional murder that is willful and premeditated with malice aforethought.

^Wikipedia

So, since it is established that they did not intend for Santiago to die, and his death was an unforeseen accident, they aren't actually guilty of the crime for which they are being charged.

Equally, since they didn't murder anyone (technically), or plan to kill, they weren't guilty of Conspiracy.

The final charge, "Conduct Unbecoming" is one they are guilty (insofar as they obeyed an illegal and immoral order) and assaulted Santiago... and they are found guilty of that.

The defendants continually decline (over the course of the film) to take a lesser charge of Manslaughter (of which they were, in fact, guilty) and you can't be convicted of a crime for which you are not charged.

So one could argue that it was a plot device or that the jury simply found that there was insufficient evidence to convict. Let's look at what UCMJ Article 118: Murder says:

Any person subject to this chapter whom without justification or excuse, unlawfully kills a human being, when he- –

(1) has a premeditated design to kill;

(2) intends to kill or inflict great bodily harm;

(3) is engaged in an act which is inherently dangerous to others and evinces a wanton disregard of human life; or

(4) is engaged in the perpetration or attempted perpetration of burglary, sodomy, rape, robbery, or aggravated arson;

is guilty of murder, and shall suffer such punishment as a court-martial may direct, except that if found guilty under clause (1) or (4), he shall suffer death or imprisonment for life as a court-martial may direct.

There is no actual "Murder in the First Degree" charge in UCMJ that I am aware of (or could find), instead murder is murder, whether it was premeditated or caused by other unlawful acts. Note that causing a real accidental death (e.g. if you lose control of your vehicle and hit someone) is still Manslaughter rather than Murder.

So my first point is that it's a Hollywoodism to begin with, since they charge them with a crime that doesn't exist in UCMJ.

If they were actually charged with Article 118, would it have stuck? Well, that's more challenging to say as viewers of the trial. Let's try the various tenets of the Article:

Any person subject to this chapter whom without justification or excuse, unlawfully kills a human being, when he- –

OK, so they are active duty Marines (therefore subject to this chapter), the jury ruled the "we were following orders" didn't give them justification or excuse, and it's established that they killed a human being unlawfully.

The 4 points are all "or" statements:

(1) has premeditated design to kill;

Ok, no, it's established they didn't plan on killing Santiago just roughing him up

(2) intends to kill or inflict great bodily harm;

This one is more debatable, but I think we can again assert that they definitely didn't intend to kill, and probably didn't consider what they were inflicting to be 'great' bodily harm. Certainly, there was nothing in what we saw of the trial (recall that we don't get to see every second of it) that establishes beyond a reasonable doubt that they intended to do more than scare the kid.

(3) is engaged in an act which is inherently dangerous to others and evinces a wanton disregard of human life; or

So this one I could actually see sticking, depending on how the lawyers argued it and what kind of off-camera evidence was presented. That said, it could have been established that based on other cases of Code Reds that hadn't caused more than bruising, the defendants were not wantonly disregarding human life and could not have expected it to be inherently dangerous. People get bruises in training all the time.

(4) is engaged in the perpetration or attempted perpetration of burglary, sodomy, rape, robbery, or aggravated arson;

Unless there were cut scenes that took a darker turn, these are all "no" as well.

Agree with the other answer that there is no "Conduct Unbecoming a US Marine", but I would say that Article 134: General Article would apply instead:

Though not specifically mentioned in this chapter, all disorders and neglects to the prejudice of good order and discipline in the armed forces, all conduct of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces, and crimes and offenses not capital, of which persons subject to this chapter may be guilty, shall be taken cognizance of by a general, special or summary court-martial, according to the nature and degree of the offense, and shall be punished at the discretion of that court.

So again, the change in the name of the charge is something of a Hollywoodism, but if correctly named it definitely could have resulted in the dishonorable discharge that they got.

I should note that I'm not a lawyer, but I've been both a Company and Battalion Commander in the US Army, and so have had to be fairly familiar with UCMJ.

At Nuremberg, two distinctions made by the prosecution to combat the "Superior Orders" defense were that 1) because of the nature of the trial, the defendants had responsibility under international law, not just the law of their own nation. It was found that they were not exempt from their moral responsibilities in this dimension; and 2) the egregiousness of the crimes meant that there was no shadow of a doubt that the defendants were aware of their actions and the reprehensibility of them.

A Few Good Men is an illustration of our own institutions' ability to judge their own actions. While a moral judgment is part of this, as a film it is also in large an exploration of the power structure that allowed the crime to take place. Someone with more knowledge of military law could step in now, but I think I am making a fair comparison in saying that, because of the muddy nature of the case, and how the Colonel wielded his power in an underhanded way, there was more interest in establishing a guilty party in terms of the cause of the crime, and not the nature of the crime.

Another thought: the military probably has a vested interest in defending the chain of command, because in many ways that is what allows it to be effective. I think the safe assumption is that, in judging itself, the military would find actions under orders "conduct unbecoming" but be sympathetic to the chain of command, and try to preserve its image.

With the precedent of the Nuremberg trials, the defense of "I was just following orders" doesn't seem legally valid.

While you bring up a valid counterargument, you also need to concede that there is a grey area here.

The Nuremberg trials refused to accept "following orders" as an excuse, because the soldiers engaged in what was clearly a human rights violation.
Following that same logic, "I was following orders" does not fly if your commanding officer tells you to rape a woman or kill a child; but it would fly if you shoot someone who is armed and running away from your miltary base (and later turns out to be innocent and did not commit any crime).

If the circumstances clearly prove that the Marines were not capable of assessing the morality of their actions because they did not have a complete understanding of what was going on (and it is not a case of willful ignorance), then they cannot be blamed for acting on lawful orders that did not directly and clearly contradicted any law.

Even when you ignore the military aspect of your question; no person should ever be convicted of a law that they did not knowingly break. Again, I am excluding willful ignorance because that can be considered knowingly taking action so you can break a law.

When the defense does it, it's called "copping a plea." But this option is also available to the jury, acting on behalf of either the defense, or the prosecution.

First, let's look at the charges, both actual and potential. Murder, first degree,(or just plain murder 1) is a situation where someone is intentionally killed, and the killing was premeditated or planned beforehand. Murder second degree, is a situation where someone is intentionally killed, but the "decision" was made on the spur of the moment. Manslaughter refers to a killing that was not intentional, but due to recklessness, and was therefore avoidable (was not accidental).

The defendants were clearly not guilty of murder 1 (which they were charged with), or even murder 2, because they didn't want Santiago to die, there was no requisite intent. Yet the fact remains that Santiago is dead at their hands. That suggests a charge of manslaughter. And often, someone accused of murder will plead guilty to manslaughter and "split the difference" (that is, get a lighter sentence than for murder, while the prosecution "locks in" some jail time).

The jury went further reduced the charge even more; to "conduct unbecoming a Marine," which in this case, meant obeying an unlawful order. In this sense, they acknowledged that the guilty parties did not act on their own volition, but were rather "put up" to killing Santiago. So it cleared the Marines of killing him per se, and convicted them with following an order that led to his death.