Trauma-informed interviewing has become a familiar part of how the military investigates sexual-assault allegations under Article 120 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The approach grew out of an effort to question people who report sexual assault in a way that avoids re-traumatizing them and that accounts for how stress can affect memory. It is widely taught and used. It is also genuinely contested in the scientific community. Both facts are important, because the technique shapes the evidence in a case while raising real questions about reliability that surface in the courtroom.
What Trauma-Informed Interviewing Is
Trauma-informed interviewing refers to a family of techniques designed to gather information from someone who has experienced a traumatic event without compounding the harm. The best-known military example is the Forensic Experiential Trauma Interview, commonly abbreviated FETI, which was developed by Russell Strand, a chief in the Behavioral Sciences Education and Training Division at the U.S. Army Military Police School.
The method draws on several sources. It borrows open-ended, non-leading questioning techniques associated with child forensic interviewing, where the goal is to avoid influencing the subject. It incorporates ideas from critical-incident stress practices, and it is justified by reference to research on the neurobiology of trauma. Rather than pressing a witness with rapid, pointed questions, the interviewer invites the person to share what they are able to recall, including sensory and experiential details, on the theory that trauma encodes memory differently and that a gentler approach yields more complete and accurate recall while reducing the risk of revictimization.
Why the Military Adopted It
The appeal in the Article 120 context is clear. Sexual-assault investigations depend heavily on the account of the person reporting, and a harsh or skeptical interview can deter reporting, distress the witness, and produce a fragmented account that is later read, perhaps unfairly, as evidence of fabrication. A trauma-informed approach aims to address all three concerns: to encourage reporting, to treat the reporting person humanely, and to elicit a fuller account. For investigators handling emotionally charged cases, the technique offers a structured alternative to confrontational interrogation styles that were never designed for traumatized witnesses.
The Scientific Controversy
The technique is not without serious criticism, and that criticism is central to its role in litigation. Memory researchers have challenged the scientific foundations of FETI in particular. Elizabeth Loftus, a prominent memory researcher at the University of California, Irvine, has stated that FETI does not represent a clinical best-practice standard for assessing trauma-related memories and that it does not reflect a valid scientific account of neurobiology, brain function, and human memory.
A deeper concern is the risk of contaminating memory. Research on priming and suggestion has led some scholars to conclude that certain trauma-informed interviewing strategies, including FETI, carry the potential to promote false memories. The worry is that an interview technique built to draw out and validate experiential recollection, if not carefully constrained, may inadvertently shape or reinforce a memory rather than neutrally record it. There is also a broader critique that the popular account of how trauma affects memory oversimplifies the underlying science. None of this means a trauma-informed interview is inherently unreliable, but it does mean the technique cannot be treated as a neutral, scientifically settled instrument.
How This Plays Out in an Article 120 Case
The interview that an investigator conducts early in a case can influence everything that follows. It shapes the initial account, frames the allegations, and may become a touchstone against which later testimony is measured. If the interview was trauma-informed, that fact cuts in two directions at trial.
On one side, the prosecution may explain apparent gaps or non-linear recall as consistent with how trauma affects memory, using the trauma-informed framework to blunt the inference that inconsistency equals fabrication. On the other side, the defense may probe whether the interview technique itself influenced the account, whether suggestive or leading elements crept in, and whether the scientific premises offered to excuse inconsistencies are as solid as claimed. The scientific debate about FETI gives the defense a basis to question both the reliability of the resulting statement and any expert testimony that relies on contested trauma-memory theories.
Practical Significance for Defense and Investigation
Because the interview is so consequential, careful examination of how it was conducted is essential. That includes obtaining any recording or detailed record of the interview, identifying the questioning method used, and assessing whether the technique may have shaped the account. Where the government offers expert testimony grounded in trauma-memory theory, its scientific validity is fair game, and the published criticism of FETI provides a foundation for challenge. The goal is not to dismiss the reality of trauma, which is real, but to test whether a particular interview produced a reliable account or potentially influenced one.
Conclusion
Trauma-informed interviewing plays a significant and double-edged role in Article 120 investigations. It reflects a sincere effort to treat people who report sexual assault with care and to account for the effects of trauma on memory, and it has been broadly adopted, with FETI as the leading military example. Yet the technique sits on contested scientific ground, with respected researchers questioning its foundations and warning about the risk of false memories. In the courtroom, that tension becomes a live issue: the same approach that the government may use to explain a witness’s account can become the focus of a defense challenge to the reliability of that account. Understanding both the promise and the controversy is essential to understanding how these cases are built and contested.
Disclaimer
This article is provided strictly for general educational and informational purposes. It is intended to explain how the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), the Rules for Courts-Martial, the Military Rules of Evidence, and related military administrative processes work as a matter of public legal education. It does not constitute legal advice, a legal opinion, or a recommendation about any particular case, and it is not a substitute for advice from a qualified military defense attorney who can evaluate the specific facts and command, service, and jurisdictional circumstances involved.
Reading this article, or contacting any website on which it appears, does not create an attorney-client relationship between the reader and any law firm, attorney, or author. Every court-martial, nonjudicial punishment action, administrative separation, and security-clearance matter turns on its own facts, the charged articles, the convening authority, the service branch, and the evidence, and outcomes vary widely from one case to another.
Military law also changes over time. The Military Justice Act of 2016 (effective January 1, 2019) and subsequent National Defense Authorization Acts renumbered and rewrote many punitive articles, revised the Article 32 preliminary hearing, and altered sentencing, clemency, and appellate procedures. Statutes, regulations, executive orders, the Manual for Courts-Martial, and decisions of the service Courts of Criminal Appeals and the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces may have been amended, superseded, or reinterpreted after this article was written, and article numbers or procedures cited here may have changed.
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