objection Tag Archives — Court-Martial Trial Practice Blog

I object!

December 25, 2010 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

Waive it or raise it at work – and at a court-martial under the UCMJ.

Judge Ed Carnes for the Eleventh Circuit in United States v. Rodriguez, No. 08-16696, Dec. 22, 2010:

This case poses the question of whether there is a vindictive judge or cowardly counsel exception to the contemporaneous objection rule. Unless there is such an exception, the only issue that the appellant is pressing on appeal is barred for failure to object because she cannot meet the requirements of the plain error rule. Disagreeing with the Second Circuit, we hold that the possibility a judge may be unhappy with an objection does not excuse the failure to make it.

Hennis update

March 30, 2010 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

Two items came across my screen at about the same time.

The FayObserver reports that:

The judge in the court-martial of Army Master Sgt. Timothy Hennis rejected defense calls for a mistrial this morning.

I object – some reminders

January 2, 2010 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

Prof. Collin Miller has this item on his blog which is an excellent reminder about objections – an issue for the defense much more than prosecution.

You’ve seen it a million times in legal movies and TV shows. A lawyer asks a witness a question, opposing counsel stands up and exclaims, "Objection, your Honor," and the judge overrules (or sustains) the objection. Like many other aspects of legal movies and TV shows, this is not the way that things are usually done in courtrooms across the country. If an attorney merely stood up and said, "Objection," in response to a question without stating the grounds for that objection, that attorney would not have preserved the issue for appellate review. Indeed, as the recent opinion of the Supreme Court of Rhode Island in State v. Reyes, 2009 WL 4730822 (R.I. 2009), makes clear, even if an attorney does state a ground for his objection, but it is the wrong ground, he has not preserved the issue for appellate review.

Mil. R. Evid. 103(a)(1) requires that when making a motion counsel at court-martial, “[state] the specific ground of objection, if the specific ground was not apparent from the context[.]”