Col. James Gallagher, a judge advocate with Marine Forces Command, and Lt. Col. Brad Tully, a deputy judge advocate with Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, role-play for law students at Suffolk University in Boston on Aug. 25, 2025. An advocacy group filed a brief on behalf of 27 former JAG officers opposing the use of military lawyers to fill vacancies at U.S. attorneys’ offices. (Aidan Hekker/U.S. Marine Corps)
More than two dozen former officers in the judge advocate general corps are joining a legal fray stemming from the U.S. government’s use of military lawyers to prosecute civilians in federal court.
A friend-of-the-court brief filed Monday was signed by 27 onetime members of the JAG corps from the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and Coast Guard.
The filing expresses opposition to the practice, which the Justice Department has adopted as part of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown even in cases that have no apparent ties to the armed forces.
Trump’s administration has expanded the assignment of military lawyers for civilian prosecutions “far beyond its historical and statutory bounds,” according to the filing in U.S. district court in Minnesota by the Protect Democracy Project.
Continuing to allow the practice “erodes democratic norms, harms military readiness and unlawfully inserts the military into civilian law enforcement’s core functions,” the brief states.
The Justice Department contends that judge advocates may be tasked to represent the United States in civil and criminal cases.
“The only connection to the military is their membership, which is not part of their enforcement of civilian law,” the government said in a brief filed with the court in March.
The case that prompted the new brief was brought on behalf of Paul Johnson, a Minnesota resident accused of assaulting federal law enforcement officers with pepper spray in January during a protest.
The plaintiffs had sought to remove Army lawyer Capt. Michael Hakes-Rodriguez, who was appointed sole prosecutor in the case. The brief argues that Magistrate Judge Shannon Elkins erred in her ruling last month that allowed the case to proceed.
Despite finding the Justice Department’s use of Hakes-Rodriguez as a civilian prosecutor contradictory to military regulation, she said she had no authority to stop the government from doing so.
Eleven military veteran attorneys who agreed with Johnson’s argument filed a friend-of-the-court brief in March, also through Protect Democracy, supporting the removal of the Army attorney.
They argued that using a JAG in a case unrelated to the military violates the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, a federal law that bars service members from conducting law enforcement activities within the United States.
The list of former JAG officers supporting the latest friend-of-thecourt brief has more than doubled.
Signatories of the new brief have served as military judges, prosecutors, defense counsel, JAG school instructors, service academy professors and legal assistance attorneys supporting service members and their families, according to the filing.
Some even were detailed to the DOJ during their military service to handle matters with “a clear and substantial nexus to military affairs,” the brief says.
It noted that the government has done this for decades, assigning JAGs to prosecute offenses committed by civilians on military installations in cases with an obvious military interest.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth last year approved sending up to 600 military lawyers to the Justice Department to serve as temporary immigration judges, The Associated Press reported.
Military lawyers were also assigned as federal prosecutors to support law enforcement operations in Minneapolis and other cities.
But the law and the military’s own regulations prohibit lawyers in the armed forces from serving as general-purpose prosecutors, Protect Democracy Project attorney Zach West said in a statement Monday.
Military lawyers work to protect service members and their families while ensuring that U.S. forces operate within the law, West said, adding that “they deserve to be focused on that military mission.”
