Court-Martial Trial Practice BlogDaily Commercial reports:
To police Chief Ed Nathanson, it doesn’t matter where you’ve been convicted as a sex offender or predator.
It only matters that you’ve been convicted.
Post-trial and SOR
Articles Tagged with court-martial
LTC Lakin sitrep 9
NIMJ was able to send Charlie Fowler to monitor todays Article 39(a), UCMJ, session.
1. Trial is continued until 4 November 2010 from 13 October 2010. Not sure of the reason. It appears Mr. Jensen asked the judge to hold the case “in abeyance” pending resolution of an (untimely?) writ which has been filed with NMCCA. According to Charlie the defense said the reason for the potentially untimely filing was “for reasons I can’t get into right now[.]” Huuuuuuuum, this has resonance. I think I’ll try this one in a couple of weeks. (Note to DMLHS, this citation to authority has to be on the top ten this year.)
2. Unsurprisingly to those familiar with military justice the judge ruled the orders to be legal.
LTC Lakin sitrep 8
Disagreement arose todday among supporters of Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin, the Army doctor facing military court-martial for refusing orders to deploy to Afghanistan after questioning Barack Obama’s constitutional eligibility to be president.
A group of retired military officers organized as the Veterans Council and the United States Patriot Union in Sheridan, Wyo., issued a white paper calling on Lakin’s legal defense team to change strategy.
Up periscope
New York Times piece with a portion of video from Morlock’s confession.
Washington Post on the Ramrod Five.
A U.S. Army staff sergeant dreamed up a plan for fellow soldiers to kill three Afghan civilians this year because he was motivated by “pure hatred,” another soldier accused in the slayings has told investigators
LTC Lakin sitrep
It has been (fill in the blank) days since LTC Lakin has been denied some discovery and witnesses for his case. His website has been updated in one place to say “Judge To Rule On Defense Request,” but the breaking news column still has the old verbiage, “Judge to Rules On Defense Request.” Of course we all know the judge has ruled. The point is though that someone is updating the site. The ruling has been adverse to LTC Lakin. I think we can say that the site managers have deliberately avoided placing adverse information on the site. Here’s some questions.
LTC Lakin and his attorney are advertising the case on the internet and a website is being used to solicit funds for LTC Lakin’s defense (we can take issue with the purported amount, compare for example an estimate of $100,000.00 to defend PFC Bradley Manning the Wikileaks accused). Mr. Jensen’s website links back to safeguardourconstitution “For More Information Visit the Case Site.” Is the advertising for funds truthful at this point, if the advertising is not truthful at this point is LTC Lakin himself complicit in a lack of truthfulness, and if LTC Lakin is complicit in this is he acting as an officer and a gentleman? At what point, if any, and I think this question goes beyond LTC Lakin, is a client responsible for “advertising” about their case which is ongoing? At what point is an attorney responsible for the accuracy of his or her advertising about a case they have ongoing? To what extent is advertising about an ongoing case consistent with Rule 3.6 of the Army (or similar other Service rule) professional responsibility rules – AR 27-26. As we bloggers know the Army has been reluctant to publically discuss and/or release LTC Lakin’s case.
Subsequent to the 2 September 2010 ruling LTC Lakin through counsel has said publically a number of times that an extraordinary writ will be filed. To date no writ appears to have been filed. The next scheduled event is for an Article 39(a), UCMJ, hearing on 28 September 2010. So now what?
Ramrod Five sitrep
The Seattle Times reports the pending court-martial case:
Spc. Jeremy Morlock, a 22-year-old Army soldier from Wasilla, Alaska, will face charges in connection with the murders of three Afghan civilians and other crimes at a hearing scheduled Monday at Joint Base Lewis-McChord.
And here’s a Foreign Policy note.
Military justice book
The Chronicle reports:
Barbara (Obremski) Allen, widow of Chester native First Lt. Louis Allen, will host a book-signing of her new release “Front Toward Enemy” On Saturday, Oct. 23 from 3-6 p.m., at John S. Burke Catholic High School in Goshen.
When Lt. Allen was murdered in Iraq in 2005 he left behind Barbara and their four sons ages 20 months to 6 years. While the Sergeant accused of his murder signed a confession, it was rejected and he eventually walked out of the Army and his court martial a free man. This is the impossible story.
NMCCA decisions
Couple of new NMCCA decisions on some court-martial appeals.
United States v. Soucie. In this case NMCCA decides that the military judge failed to adequately inquire into a duress defense on providency.
The accused raised six errors and the NMCCA specified an additional error. The government agreed that a charge under Article 123a should be set aside because it failed to state an offense. This left a sole specification of impersonation.
Crawford, Melendez-Diaz, Briscoe, and Blazier stew
Here is Professor Friedman’s post about Briscoe.
The Virginia Supreme Court today issued its decision in Briscoe on remand from the United States Supreme Court. . The court held that the former Virginia statutory scheme (under which the defendant had to call a lab analyst as his witness if he wanted to examine the analyst) was unconstitutional. This, of course, was the point that I sought to establish in bringing the petition for certiorari; Melendez-Diaz made the point clear, and now the Virginia Supreme Court has drawn the obvious conclusion.
The court held that the error was harmless in Briscoe’s case, but Cypress’s conviction was reversed. I expect his case will plead out.
Here are the SCOTUSWiki links on the Supreme Court litigation.
LTC Lakin sitrep
This is the 13th day that APF (safeguardourconstitution), LTC Lakin’s support site, has failed to post the military judge’s findings and conclusions, and advertises as “Breaking News,” “Judge to Rules (sic) . . ..”
This is the 13th day that LTC Lakin and his team have failed to file a petition for a writ of mandamus or prohibition with the Army Court of Criminal Appeals. (I’m reliably informed that no such petition has been filed as of yesterday.)
1. Delay in filing the writ will not necessarily gain delay in the trial.