court-martial Tag Archives — Page 48 of 60 — Court-Martial Trial Practice Blog

Text MG Cleveland’s letter to Rep. Burton

December 31, 2009 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

Dear Representative Burton,

Thank you for your letter expressing your and your colleagues concern regarding the pending Courts-martial of Petty Officers Huertas, McCabe, and Keefe. I understand your interest in these cases and can assure you that I am committed to protecting the rights of the Sailors who have been accused.

Regrettably it appears that your perception of the incident is based upon incomplete and factually inaccurate press coverage. Despite what has been reported, these allegations are not founded solely on the word of the detainee, but rather, were initially raised by other U.S. service members. Additionally, the alleged injuries did not occur during actions on the objective, as is also being widely reported in the media. A medical examination conducted at the time the detainee was turned over to U.S. forces determined that his alleged injuries were inflicted several hours after the operation had ended, and while in the custody and care of the U.S. at Camp Schweidler’s detainee holding facility.

Flipper

December 31, 2009 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

The Fall of a Black Army Officer: Racism & the Myth of Henry O. Flipper, by Charles M. Robinson III, Norman, Ok: University of Oklahoma Press, 2008.

In his 1994 book The Court-Martial of Lieutenant Henry Flipper, Robinson, an historian of the frontier army, held to the view that Flipper?s 1881 conviction for embezzlement was rooted in racism.

Reviewing materials not available at the time he did the earlier book, in the present work Robinson concludes that, while not denying the existence of racism in the army, Flipper had indeed been careless with funds, albeit probably intentionally. Such financial misconduct apparently was not uncommon in the Old Army, as very young officers were often given responsibility for large sums with little or not training. A number of other officers in the period were also found short in their accounts. The penalties handed out to most of these officers, however, were not usually immediate expulsion from the service, which is where the Flipper case differs from theirs.

Special sentencing for vets

December 31, 2009 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

Should military veterans get a break when they are sentenced for crimes?

Asks a piece in the Wall Street Journal. This is interesting in light of some discussion on CAAFLog about sentencing in court-martial and sentence ranges under the UCMJ. Seems some civilian judges are more interested in giving a sentence based on the whole person and individualized rather than a set amount.

“We dump all kinds of money to get soldiers over there and train them to kill, but we don’t do anything to reintegrate them into our society,” says John L. Kane, a federal judge in Denver.

Saving the SEALS

December 31, 2009 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

Army Maj. Gen. Charles Cleveland has responded to a letter that challenges the handling of a case against three Navy SEALs accused of mishandling a suspected terrorist.
In the Dec. 15 letter, addressed to Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., Cleveland essentially refuses to drop the charges against the three men.

"While the assault and resulting injury to the detainee were relatively minor, the more disconcerting allegations are those related to the sailor’s attempts to cover-up the incident," said Cleveland, who writes that this appears to be an attempt to influence the testimony of a witness.

Cleveland writes that the "alleged allegations are not founded solely on the word of the detainee, but rather, were initially raised by other U.S. service members."

Who am I

December 29, 2009 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

State Department investigators say Chief Engineman (SW) Arturo Puente at Jacksonville’s Mayport Naval Station has used a false name for the last 22 years while working at U.S. embassies in Rome and Panama, according to the Florida Times-Union newspaper.

Navy Times reports. No indications of a court-martial or any UCMJ violations.

Do you trust me game continues

December 28, 2009 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

Airman 1st Class Corey Hernandez pulled the trigger. Nothing was supposed to happen, except the metallic click of the hammer striking the firing pin.

Instead, the pistol fired.

Until Dec. 10, when the 23-year-old Garcia died, the Air Force had not had any reported incidents of airmen playing Trust.

No search of cellphone without warrant?

December 26, 2009 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

Thanks to howappealing.law.com, here is a Ohio State Supreme Court opinion in State v. Smith. The issue is warrantless searches of cell-phones. While this issue may have been raised in a court-martial, I don’t see a relevant military appellate decision. So the issue is apparently an open one for court-martial cases.

Here is a link to a New York Times editorial on the Ohio case.

The Ohio Supreme Court has struck an important blow for privacy rights, ruling that the police need a warrant to search a cellphone. The court rightly recognized that cellphones today are a lot more than just telephones, that they hold a wealth of personal information and that the privacy interest in them is considerable. This was the first such ruling from a state supreme court. It is a model for other courts to follow.

Sham or shame

December 26, 2009 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

The Army’s attempt to stem a rising tide of suicides made it impossible for a Fort Bliss soldier convicted of cruelty toward subordinates to get a fair trial, the soldier’s parents say.

"I still maintain that this was a miscarriage of justice," said John Taylor, father of Pvt. Jarrett Taylor. "They needed a conviction and they got it. É This is a sham."

Taylor said his son, a sergeant at the time, was trying to help soldiers on their first deployment in Iraq survive in a combat zone.

Instructions

December 25, 2009 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

Jury instructions are too often so poorly written that even the most intelligent juror cannot understand them. That’s a serious problem. So how can we make jury instructions more understandable? Prof. Peter Tiersma offers many concrete suggestions in this article, available for free download on SSRN. If you’re a trial judge or trial lawyer, you need to read it.

From the (new) legal writer blog. Instructions given in a court-martial prosecution under the UCMJ can at times be confusing. Certainly the current practice in a court-martial of reading the instructions and then giving a written copy does help somewhat to alleviate potential issues from reading only.

Evidence – reporter privilege

December 25, 2009 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

FederalEvidence blog has this update on the status of a reporter privilege. As commented earlier, under Mil.R. Evid. 1103, any new evidence rule will become applicable to court-martial cases.

After many weeks of being listed on the Senate Judiciary Committee business calendar, on December 10, 2009, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved by a vote of 14 to 5 an amended version of S. 448, the Free Flow of Information Act of 2009.

The Federal Evidence Review will continue to monitor action on the House and Senate measures. For more information concerning the legislation, see Free Flow of Information Act of 2009 Legislative History Page.