NJS Anniversary

​To ever-so-slightly paraphrase Daniel Webster, the Naval Justice School is a small school, and yet there are those who love it. Many of those NJSphiles gathered on the banks of Coasters Harbor on July 20 to celebrate the school’s 80th anniversary.
 
Following a synopsis of NJS’s history by Captain Isabella M. Killeen, USMC, the school’s commander officer, Colonel D.J. Riley, USMC, discussed the evolution of NJS’s missions and its successes in accomplishing them.
 
The “United States School of Naval Justice” was formally dedicated on June 29, 1946, at Port Hueneme, California. Dedication Agenda, Seabees Coverall (Port Hueneme, CA), June 27, 1946, at 1. Classes at the schoolhouse commenced on July 1. Id. The staff then included eight Navy officers, two Marine officers, and four Navy enlisted personnel. They were tasked with teaching seven‑week courses, each attended by 150 naval officers and 50 yeomen. Those courses’ objective was to “acquaint naval personnel with the substantive and procedural law of naval justice.” Captain Shane D. Cooper, JAGC, USN, Address by Captain Shane D. Cooper, Commanding Officer, Naval Justice School, at the Commemoration of the 75th Anniversary of the Naval Justice School, Newport, Rhode Island, July 2021, 67 Naval L. Rev. 1, 4 (1921). Before the school opened, naval justice education had been offered at a less formalized Courts and Boards Training Course at Port Hueneme. See Dedication Agenda, supra; The School of Naval Justice, Seabees Coverall, June 27, 1946, at 1; Captain Jay M. Siegel, JAGC, USNR, Origins of the Navy Judge Advocate General’s Corps 456-59 (1997).
 
World War II had demonstrated the need for legal training in the sea services. During the war, the Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard collectively numbered four million personnel, with an average of 14,000 courts-martial per month. Cooper, 67 Naval L. Rev. at 4 (citing Oswald S. Colclough, Naval Justice, 38 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 198, 201 (1947)). Significantly, “the school was not organized to train lawyers; it was organized to train the line officers who, in the Navy, still had full responsibility for all court martial and disciplinary functions.” Siegel, supra, at 460.
 
Much to the delight of future generations of sea-service judge advocates, the school moved from Port Hueneme to Newport, Rhode Island, in 1950. “The Justice School was located in a World War II ‘temporary’ structure, Building M-3, on Coddington Point. Formal dedication took place on 1 May 1950, and the first classes were held on 15 May 1950.” Id. at 504. Still, “There was no separate course for lawyers.” Id.
 
In 1965, NJS finally inaugurated what would become the Basic Lawyer Course for sea service lawyers.
 
The school moved to Bradley Hall in 1984. (That building is named in honor of then-Chief Gunner George Bradley, USN—a Newport native who was awarded the Medal of Honor for meritorious service under fire during U.S. forces’ landing at Vera Cruz in 1914. 6 Buildings Here Named for Heroes, Newport Navalog, Dec. 3, 1976, at 1.) More than four decades later, Bradley Hall remains the backbone of the NJS schoolhouse. In 1991, Helton-Morrison Hall opened to provide a much-needed expansion of teaching space, including tiered classrooms and additional mock trial courtrooms. “The hall is named in the memory of LN1(SW) Michael Helton and LN1(SW) Robert Morrison who perished along with forty-seven other Sailors onboard USS IOWA (BB-61) in a gun turret explosion during a training exercise in April 1989.” Cooper, 67 Naval L. Rev. at 6.
 
The festivities concluded with a cake-cutting ceremony, at which Rear Admiral (ret.) Dennis McCoy—a former NJS commanding officer—wielded a cutlass to administer the first slash to the supine gâteau.