re: Another "A Few Good Men" Question: Why Didn't Dawson Take the Stand and Why Did Downey?

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without jessup incriminating himself (which was not realistic in my view) those two dudes were getting convicted of murder. I don’t see how anyone watching that movie could say kaffee got them off with a brilliant defense strategy


If Markinson had not killed himself and testified to his involvement in the cover up I think reasonable doubt would have been a real possibility.

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Yeah and you have to remember Jessup likely didn’t know Markinson was dead. He was AWOL and basically in witness protection when he killed himself, so Jessup walked in probably suspecting Kaffee had him lined up to testify.

That’s why he wanted the chance to explain the order and why he felt it was necessary on the record.

Like Gallloway said, he WANTED to say it. It’s not like he was confessing to murder. Just issuing an order in violation of the code red ban (well also perhaps the coverup with the fake transfer order and altering the flight logs, but without Markinson proving that would be near impossible) His career was likely over, and at the very least he was never making general and would lose command of Gitmo, but I doubt he was actually going to jail.

He just wanted to tell the bureaucrats above him to frick off on his way out.


There were also the two airmen that came into the courtroom that visually rattled him even if he had found out that Markinson was dead from the MP (the witnesses probably would have been sequestered out of the courtroom though) Kaffee told the judge so that Jessup could hear that he was adding two witnesses that worked the airfield the morning that the earlier flight took off that Santiago could have been on if he was actually being transferred.

He says afterwards that they didn’t remember if there was a flight or not, but Jessup didn’t know that. That’s clearly when Jessup made the decision to just say frick it he’s going to say what he thought of the whole thing, so Kaffee definitely played that perfectly.


The Jessup rant on the stand didn’t bother me (although true it wouldn’t have been allowed in an actual trial), that was in character imo.

What I didn’t like, and I always mention in these threads, was the cheesy scene after when he tries to attack Kaffee and has to be restrained. That’s some Reiner cheese there, and Kaffee’s “you’re under arrest you sonofabitch” line really cheapens what was an awesome scene before that imo.



Again, Jessup didn’t order Santiago killed, it was basically a hazing gone wrong. The only reason the order mattered was because it disproved the poison on the rag theory that the prosecution was relying on to prove that it was intentional.

Once the order was confirmed, Dawson and Downey putting poison on the rag just wasn’t believable. That’s the only reason they were acquitted of murder. It was clear it was just a tragic accident at that point.

But they were apparently still guilty of conduct unbecoming because the order was illegal, which is probably the more interesting question for any JAGs to answer.

Again, Kaffee and Galloway have a good argument in that they aren’t allowed to question orders, and they probably didn’t even know of the ban. Weinberg didn’t think it mattered, but it was an interesting legal question that would have been given more attention in an actual trial and not a movie/play.

The prosecution assumed the poison argument because Jessup insisted no order was given and no code red would have been done independently, so they had to have acted out of malice and intended to kill Santiago.

As the saying goes, the cover up is often worse than the crime.