FourthAmendment blog reports a new case: Police reports were "deceptive and deficient," but the court believes officer without a credibility determination: Ties go to the runner, or the government. The court finds the officer deceptive and believes him anyway because of a presumption police officers tell the truth [even…
A case pending at the U.S. Supreme Court was recently settled out of court, and the case withdrawn from consideration. It appears that there has been a settlement of $12M, for prosecutorial misconduct. "This means prosecutors who step outside their traditional role and who act as investigators (in criminal cases)…
Stars & Stripes reports. The Army recently asked 45 of its soldiers in the highest enlisted rank to retire for substandard performance, past criminal convictions, problems with alcohol, fraternization or sexual harassment in their recent pasts. Of the 45 sergeants major whose records were flagged under the newly reinstituted Qualitative…
Here’s the scenario: Client is convicted at court-martial. Sentencing is to take place the next day, or a Monday after a Friday conviction. Based on the charges and the evidence there’s a reasonable likelihood the client will get some confinement. The command wants to put the client in pretrial confinement…
There are a number of ways denial of counsel of choice can come up, most frequently related to the availability of civilian counsel. Here’s an interesting one. United States v. Gonzalez-Lopez, 548 U.S. 140 (2006). The opinion is written by Justice Scalia. Here are the important part of the opinion:…
United States v. Cowgill. WHETHER THE MILITARY JUDGE ABUSED HER DISCRETION IN DENYING THE DEFENSE MOTION TO SUPPRESS ALL EVIDENCE FROM APPELLANT’S HOME. The two underlying point were: potential erroneous information given for a search warrant (statements were factually incorrect, but believed to be true by the detective at the…
On habeas review of state court convictions, the detective’s trial testimony about the statements of two non-testifying co-actors which implicated the defendant in the shooting and which were used to confront the defendant during his interview violated the Confrontation Clause and constituted plain error, in Ray v. Boatwright, _ F.3d…
United States v. Sezginalp: There is an interesting appellate procedural history. The court intially denied various efforts to have a post-trial R.C.M. 706 evaluation. But, the court did sua sponte reconsider the denial and did order a new R.C.M. 706 examination. On 6 January 2010, the ordered R.C.M. 706 evaluation…
WRAL.com reports that members selection has begun in the Hennis court-martial. x reports that the military judge has declined to delay trial pending the outcome of Hennis’s District Court jurisdictional case. Navy Times reports: The skipper of Naval Air Station Pensacola, Fla., was temporarily relieved of command Friday for “inappropriate…
CAAF has issued an opinion in United States v. Bradford, a government appeal of a pretrial ruling. The appeal was on a military judge declination to pre-admit a Lab Package in a urinalysis case. AFCCA had no trouble saying that a declination to pre-admit evidence is appealable. CAAF had no…