COURT OFAPPEALS-TENNESSEE (Nashville) See State v. Tennessee. A post-trial discovery case. The court begins, “The primary issue in this case involves the State’s delayed disclosure of obviously exculpatory evidence.” Overall a very nice cases discussing Brady-plus’s [[1]] application to post-trial matters. Colin Miller in discussing this case observes that, “In Brady…
Court-Martial Trial Practice Blog
Briggs, Collins, and Mangahas
The Supreme Court has reversed CAAF in Briggs and Colins, which effectively also overrules Mangahas. Click to access 19-108_8njq.pdf
Statements against interest
Prof. Colin Miller begins, Similar to its federal counterpart, Idaho Rule of Evidence 804(b)(3) provides an exception to the rule against hearsay for A statement that: (A) a reasonable person in the declarant’s position would have made only if the person believed it to be true because, when made, it was so contrary…
Fort Hood
Here is a link to the Report of the Fort Hood Independent Review Committee. Although the Findings in this Report outline failures in leadership, they should not be interpreted as an indictment of military commanders or the U. S. Army. While the issues raised in this Report are serious and…
Change not coming soon
As the cannabis industry continues to take root state by state, the House of Representatives voted in favor of removing marijuana from the federal Controlled Substances Act. The House voted Friday on the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act, or MORE Act, which decriminalizes cannabis and clears the way to…
A commander’s duty to punish
Several years ago, Beth Van Schaack highlighted a gap in U.S. law regarding atrocity crimes. Although well established in international criminal law as well as other areas of U.S. law, Title 18 of the U.S. Code lacks command responsibility as a mode of criminal responsibility. Following the issuance of pardons by President…
Up Periscope 04112020
04122020–UP PERISCOPE
FRE 404(b) changes effecrtive 1 December 2020
That means the change will likely come to the MRE effective 18 months from now absent action by the Prez. See MRE 1102. The defense will no longer be required to make a demand for notice—prosecution must disclose regardless of a request! Most importantly, the notice requires more than the…
A bit more on FS
Courtesy of Global Military Justice Reform blog. The Conference Report for the proposed William M. (Mac) Thornberry National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021 is now out and can be found here. Readers will want to look in particular at § 542, which imposes a 12-years-of-law-practice qualification for judges of the…
We may be seeing the last of factual sufficiency issues on appeal
Click to access CRPT-116hrpt617.pdf