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Spilman reports that:  CAAF decided the Navy case of United States v. Andrews, __ M.J. __, No.17-0480/NA (CAAFlog case page) (link to slip op.), on Tuesday, May 22, 2018. Rejecting the Navy-Marine Corps Appellate Government Division’s argument that the failure to object to improper argument at trial waives any error on appeal, CAAF concludes that any improper argument by the prosecution in this particular case was harmless and affirms the decision of the Navy-Marine Corps CCA.  The report highlights a portion of the opinion:

Despite our finding of no prejudice, the prosecutorial conduct in this case raises concerns we feel compelled to address. We remind all military judges of their “sua sponte duty to insure [sic] that an accused receives a fair trial.” United States v. Watt, 50 M.J. 102, 105 (C.A.A.F. 1999) (internal quotation marks omitted) (citation omitted); see also United States v. Knickerbocker, 2 M.J. 128, 129 (C.M.A. 1977) (“At the very least, the judge should have interrupted the trial counsel before he ran the full course of his impermissible argument.”). Military judges are neither “mere figurehead[s]” nor are they “umpire[s] in a contest between the Government and accused.” Watt, 50 M.J. at 105 (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting United States v. Kimble, 23 C.M.A. 251, 253, 49 C.M.R. 384, 386 (1974)). Nor can a defense counsel sit like a bump on a log—he or she owes a duty to the client to object to improper arguments early and often. See DeFreitas v. State, 701 So.2d 593, 602 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 1997) (explaining the court is unlikely to “excuse counsel for his failure” to object because a defense counsel “has the duty to remain alert to such things in fulfilling his responsibility to see that his client receives a fair trial”). Failure to do so may give rise to meritorious ineffective assistance of counsel claims. See F. Emmit Fitzpatrick & NiaLena Caravasos, Ineffective Assistance of Counsel, 4 Rich. J.L. & Pub. Int., 67, 81 (2000) (listing federal cases in which the circuit courts found ineffective assistance of counsel for failure to object (citing Williams v. Washington, 59 F.3d 673, 684 (7th Cir. 1995); Henry v. Scully, 78 F.3d 51, 52–53 (2d Cir. 1996); Bolander v. Iowa, 978 F.2d 1079, 1083–84 (8th Cir. 1992); Crotts v. Smith, 73 F.3d 861, 867 (9th Cir. 1996); Atkins v. Attorney General of Alabama, 932 F.2d 1430, 1432 (11th Cir. 1991); and Mason v. Scully, 16 F.3d 38, 45 (2d Cir. 1994))). Finally, we remind trial counsel they are:

representative not of an ordinary party to a controversy, but of a sovereignty whose obligation to govern impartially is as compelling as its obligation to govern at all; and whose interest, therefore, in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done. As such, [they are] in a peculiar and very definite sense the servant of the law, the twofold aim of which is that guilt shall not escape or innocence suffer…. It is as much [their] duty to refrain from improper methods calculated to produce a wrongful conviction as it is to use every legitimate means to bring about a just one.

On July 11, 2017 (79 FR 59938-59959), the JSC published a Notice of Proposed Amendments concerning procedure and evidence applicable in trials by court-martial, non-judicial punishment proceedings, and the punitive articles of the Uniform Code of Military Justice as amended by the Military Justice Act of 2016, Division E of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017 and follow-on changes made by the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018.

Comments and materials received from the public are available under Docket ID Number DOD-2017-OS-0032, and at the following link https://www.regulations.gov/ docket? D= DOD-2017-OS-0032.

The JSC considered each public comment and made some modifications to the proposed amendments accordingly.

The NMCCA decided United States v. Kmiecik on 17 May 2018.

Kmiecik challenges the military judge’s decision to admit “a signed acknowledgment from the appellant that he understood the Marine Corps’ policy concerning the illegal use of drugs[,]” during sentencing.

For trial counsel and judges, and defense counsel.

Captain Milott has an interesting article about the use and interpretation of emojis and emoticons in criminal trials when they are part of a text, email, or some other social media message.  Many sexual assault courts-martial involve texts and emails between the complaining witness and a suspect–is there a damaging admission, a confession, or something helpful in defense?

Check out 44(3) The Reporter 61 (2017).

Expressing emotion in our digital lives presents unique challenges. Articulating joy, sadness, or laughter in non-verbal, non-word characters is a learned skill which can be interpreted differently than the author intended. Despite the danger of misinterpretation inherent in the use of emojis and emoticons, their popularity has increased since their online debut in the early 1980s.

Lagano, et al, The Air Force SVC Program: The First Five Years, 44(3) The Reporter 31 (2017).

We begin by examining the creation of the SVC program within the Air Force, the expansion of victims’ counsel programs throughout the Department of Defense (DoD), and the growing list of victims’ rights.  In the second part of this article, we examine the current state of the law and regulations governing the SVC program, highlighting the role of the SVC, and the responsibilities and obligations of the base legal office and others who interact with victims and SVCs. Additionally, we examine the most recent development in the area of SVC representation–Air Force Guidance Memorandum (AFGM) 2016-01 to AFI 51-504.

The AFGM states the general scope.

The number of exonerations involving wrongdoing by police, prosecutors and other government workers set a record last year, according to a report released on Wednesday. The findings are part of a larger trend that reflects America’s more aggressive attempts to expose and understand the causes of wrongful convictions.

The new statistics, released by the National Registry of Exonerations, documented 84 cases ─ half of them homicides ─ in which people were freed from prison in 2017 after their convictions were revealed to be tainted by official misconduct, as opposed to mistaken identifications, false confessions and false accusations.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/more-exonerations-are-driven-police-prosecutor-misconduct-n856626

Here’s an interesting timeline I came across when reading about the different reasons people lie about sexual assault.

International Timeline

In general, motive can be described as an inward emotion, passion, or feeling in a person which “is likely to lead” that person to do an “appropriate act” as “an outlet” for this emotion. See J. Wigmore, A Treatise on the Anglo-American System of Evidence in Trials at Common Law § 117 (3d ed. 1940) (hereafter cited as Wigmore). The defense particularly contended that the prosecutrix had a feeling of anger towards appellant and a feeling of guilt concerning herself. She argued that it was reasonable to infer that an angry person would do some act of revenge against the person who was the object of her anger. She further intimated that a person experiencing guilt would do some act of revenge against the person who caused this feeling of guilt to surface. The particular acts to be inferred from this emotional state of mind in the prosecutrix were her false accusations that appellant raped her. No argument has been presented by the Government which would lead us to conclude that such acts of revenge could not be reasonably considered appropriate outlets for these emotions. Id.

United States v. Dorsey, 16 M.J. 1, 4 (C.M.A. 1983).

If you have been falsely accused of a sexual offense you are not alone.  I agree and understand that does not make your time in the hot seat happy, comfortable, or certain the truth will out.

Here is an article about sexual offense investigation and prosecution in the U.K.  U.S. service members will see similarities–sadly.

“Guilty until proven nnocent: life after a false rape allegation.” Jonathan Wells, The Telegraph (UK), some takes and inferences.

Some may remember United States v. Denedo, where the appellant won at the Supreme Court, but then his appellate lawyer failed to file a petition to CAAF in time–out of court, done, no relief.

So here’s an interesting Coast Guard case–United States v. Reese III.

Reese filed a petition for a writ of coram nobis.