COLUMN ONE : Military Justice Is Under Fire : System is attacked after no convictions are secured in Tailhook case, downing of U.S. copters over Iraq. Defenders say public doesn’t understand that even a wrist slap can break a career in the service.

The plot is fast-paced, and in the end the bad guy gets his due:

The body of Marine Pfc. William Santiago is discovered--bound and gagged--in a remote part of the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Two young Marines are charged with the murder.

An investigation shows that the slaying was carried out under a grisly honor code sanctioned by the colonel in charge. A team of Navy lawyers exposes a massive cover-up and gets the charges against the enlisted men reduced. The colonel is hauled off to face a court-martial.

Sound like something out of the movies? It is : “A Few Good Men,” a 1992 film starring Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson.

Real life is different.

In the actual case on which the movie was based, there was no murder--the Marines roughed up their victim and stuffed a blanket into his mouth. Three Marines were convicted of assault but were given light penalties. And the colonel? He was let off with a reprimand.

Isn’t anybody going to be held accountable?

That question is being asked increasingly these days--both inside and outside the armed services--after a series of incidents in which military leaders have made glaring errors but escaped severe punishment.

Most recently, a court-martial last month acquitted Air Force Capt. Jim Wang, who was the only person charged in the 1994 downing of two Army helicopters by a pair of U.S. F-16 fighter planes over northern Iraq. The acquittal of Wang, who had supervised air traffic control in the area, ended a yearlong legal proceeding that resulted in nothing more than a few slaps on the wrist, despite a plethora of deficiencies, at all levels, that conspired to bring down the choppers, at a cost of 26 lives.

The incident over Iraq is no isolated example:

* A recent Pentagon report detailed glaring deficiencies in the operation of an Army aviation unit that led to December’s downing of a U.S. helicopter that had strayed over North Korea. But it specifically recommended against punishing anyone.

* Despite complaints citing more than 140 cases of harassment of women at the 1991 Tailhook convention, the Navy failed to obtain a single court-martial conviction. The only relief for Lt. Paula Coughlin, the naval aviator who first brought the charges, came in a civil suit.

* The captain of the cruiser Vincennes, which erroneously shot down a civilian Iranian airliner in 1988, not only went unpunished but even received a medal commending his extraordinary “tactical skills” while his ship was engaging Iranian gunboats.

In each of these instances, the services have vigorously defended their actions.

For example, Air Force Secretary Sheila Widnall said that the system of operating military aircraft over Iraq contributed to the downing of the copters. “This mishap was not the result of any one individual’s actions,” she said after Wang’s acquittal.

But the growing number of cases, including others involving less serious infractions, has stirred debate over whether the military is papering over its most serious mistakes--at the possible long-term expense of good order and discipline.

Robert W. Gaskin, a former Air Force fighter pilot and Pentagon strategist, says he believes the officers involved in the downing of the U.S. helicopters over Iraq were held accountable because the episode will impede their careers. “But whether justice was done is another question entirely.”

Military experts say public concern stems at least in part from a widespread misperception of how justice is dispensed in the military, and a disparity between how various punishments are viewed inside and outside the armed services.

The heart of the military legal system is the Uniform Code of Military Justice, a compilation of 146 provisions that covers everything from specific criminal acts, such as murder, to the more vaguely defined “conduct unbecoming an officer.”

The UCMJ, which not only spells out the crimes but prescribes maximum penalties, functions as the military’s criminal code. It applies equally to all four services. And it is formally enacted by Congress as part of federal civilian law.

For minor infractions, such as being late to work or failing to salute, service members can be brought before an administrative hearing conducted by their commanding officer. The commanding officer makes a quick decision and metes out whatever punishment is appropriate. Sentences by law are relatively light, and there is no appeal.

Courts-martial are convened for serious violations. There are three kinds, depending upon the severity of the charges:

* Summary court-martial. The military’s justice-of-the-peace court for trying persons accused of relatively minor violations, such as drunk and disorderly conduct, that may carry light sentences. An officer serves as judge. No jury is involved.

* Special court-martial. Used mainly for misdemeanors, such as petty larceny and minor assaults. The court consists of one officer as judge and at least three others who serve as a jury. Sentences are limited to six months’ confinement in a military prison and a bad-conduct discharge.

* General court-martial. Primarily for trying felonies, including those that carry the death penalty. An officer serves as judge and at least five others--or two enlisted persons and three officers, if an enlisted defendant requests it--make up the jury.

For most Americans, the best-known of these punishments involves the court-martial. Besides “A Few Good Men,” studios have ground out some 20 movies based on military trials, including “The Caine Mutiny” and “The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell.”

But military analysts caution that in the case of officers, there also is a broad array of disciplinary measures outside the military legal system--from harsh personnel evaluations to letters of reprimand--that can amount to a form of punishment without need for a trial.

Military careers depend upon keeping clean records and earning high praise from superiors, which is vital for promotions. A letter or reprimand or a few well-chosen words in a fitness report can be catastrophic.

“That may be about as much as any court-martial might mete out,” says retired Brig. Gen. David M. Brahms, who once served as the Marine Corps’ top legal officer.

Even so, retired Col. Michael F. Noone, a former Air Force legal officer who is now a military law expert at Catholic University, says today’s military justice system contains some peculiarities that can skew the results.

For one, it is run by officers, who often have a bias in favor of higher-ranking personnel. Enlisted men often receive harsh sentences for offenses that would draw no more than a reprimand for officers. Generals often are treated more gingerly than captains.

Beyond that, says Brahms, unit commanders hold considerable sway over the handling of individual cases. That makes for wide disparities in how cases are treated--unlike the civilian legal system, where the same laws and practices generally apply throughout the country.

Eugene R. Fidell, a civilian military law specialist, also points out that, unlike its civilian counterpart, the military legal system is not merely a set of laws and procedures for handling criminal conduct. It also must serve as a system for disciplining job-related problems, such as wearing a uniform improperly.

As a consequence, neither the handling of the cases nor the punishments always appear consistent. Late last month, for example, the Air Force relieved one of its top generals of his command for having an extramarital affair, while barely punishing another who cost taxpayers $116,000 by abusing his right to commandeer military planes for his personal transportation.

Perhaps more than any other recent episode, the helicopter incident over Iraq focused attention on the incongruities of today’s military justice system.

Although nine officers were cited for having had some responsibility in connection with the mishap--and Defense Secretary William J. Perry vowed at the time of the incident to hold everyone accountable--in the end not one of them was severely punished.

Two brigadier generals who had been in charge of overseeing the operation were given letters of admonition and transferred to other assignments. The lead F-16 pilot, a captain, was given immunity, and charges against his wingman in the accompanying F-16 were dismissed.

Only Wang, who supervised the crew of air controllers aboard an early warning radar plane that was supposed to keep tabs on all aircraft in the area, was court-martialed, on three charges of dereliction of duty.

His military jury, made up of Air Force officers senior to him, found the evidence ambiguous and acquitted him. Some suspect the jurors also may have believed that the young captain was being made a scapegoat for the mistakes of the eight more-senior officers.

“It’s mind-boggling,” says a Marine officer who asked not to be identified. “What it shows is that the Air Force takes care of its pilots, and everything else be damned.”

Williamson Murray, a former Ohio State University military specialist, contends that the Air Force bungled its handling of the case from the beginning, first by granting immunity to the lead F-16 pilot and later by trying to prosecute the wingman, who legally had been obliged to follow his orders.

Wang’s case was overseen by the commanders of his air controller unit in Oklahoma. There was almost no coordination with their counterparts at the F-16 bases in Europe, who were heading the probes of the two fighter pilots and the two generals who had been responsible for overseeing the entire operation.

Partly as a result, testimony from the cases in Europe could not be used in Wang’s case. The F-16 pilots were not brought to trial, and the generals received letters of admonition--”not exactly a bed of nails,” says Fidell.

Kathleen Gilberd, a legal analyst at the Military Law Task Force, which counsels defendants in military cases, says the incident “fits into a pattern, not just in the Air Force but in the military as a whole, where the most egregious incidents often result in a cover-up and a circling of the wagons. I have certainly seen my clients subjected to much worse for things that don’t involve the death of 26 persons.”

Catholic University’s Noone points out that many of the “offenses” for which military personnel may be punished would not even be brought up as criminal charges if the incident had occurred in civilian life.

The shooting incident over northern Iraq is a perfect example, Noone asserts. If Wang had been a civilian air traffic controller, Noone says, “he never would have been charged with manslaughter” even if the accident had resulted in a large number of deaths.

Still, analysts point out that in some respects, the military justice system is arguably fairer than its civilian counterpart.

Military defendants are entitled to free legal counsel no matter what their rank or financial situation--not just if they are too poor to afford lawyers. Appeal is automatic in most serious cases. And for those who are convicted, there is a system of clemency and parole.

But defense lawyers, while sworn to zealously protect the rights of the accused, are career officers who must be sensitive to the way the local commander wants each case handled.

Fidell, a Washington lawyer and president of the National Institute of Military Justice--an organization of lawyers who are expert in military law--suggests that recent developments may have outpaced the military justice system’s ability to keep up.

Space Age technology has created complex, global weapon systems that are beyond the control of any one person. In such an environment, it can sometimes be impossible to determine who is to blame when something goes wrong.

“How do you plug that kind of technological environment into a system of criminal justice that has its roots in the Old Testament?” Fidell asks. “It may be that the technology outstrips the moral notion of punishment and culpability.”

Then there is the frequent difficulty of prosecuting large numbers of defendants, as was the case in the Tailhook scandal. Prosecutors were hamstrung when aviators, hiding behind a sort of honor code that some say runs deep through the military culture, refused to testify against one another, and the entire effort collapsed.

And finally, Fidell contends, the system has begun responding to the evolution of the military from an emergency war machine into a permanent career for large numbers of Americans--a push that has brought the military justice system steadily closer to its civilian counterpart.

Brahms worries that some top military leaders take advantage of the system, confident that they can act with impunity. Stories abound of unit commanders who have ruined the careers of subordinates whom they find distasteful, such as suspected homosexuals.

Some minor changes in the way the military handles its more controversial cases may be in the offing.

Following a raft of allegations suggesting that aircraft accidents have been covered up, Gen. Ronald R. Fogleman, the Air Force chief of staff, has set up a blue-ribbon review board to look into the incidents.

And the Tailhook scandal has prompted the Navy to take major steps to change attitudes toward women.

Still, most experts predict that the military legal system, at least, is likely to remain fundamentally the same for the foreseeable future. For all the seeming flaws, it usually accomplishes what it is supposed to: combining a criminal justice system and a means of maintaining discipline on the job.

As Brahms puts it: “On balance, when you look around at what happens in the civilian world, you’ve got to say that the military justice system kind of works.”