sjar Tag Archives — Court-Martial Trial Practice Blog

Post-trial duties

January 9, 2011 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

NMCCA has decided United States v. Owens.

The appellant asserts that the attorney-client relationship with his detailed trial defense counsel was terminated without good cause, leaving the appellant legally and factually without post-trial representation. The basis for the appellant’s claim is that substitute counsel failed to establish an attorney-client relationship with the appellant prior to receipt of the staff judge advocate’s recommendation (SJAR).

The court makes clear in footnote 3, that:

New ACCA case

August 29, 2010 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

ACCA has released an unpublished opinion in United States v. Delagarza. It’s an odd case.

A military judge sitting as a general court-martial convicted appellant, pursuant to his pleas, of violating a general order, false official statement, and two specifications of larceny (from his fellow soldiers), in violation of Articles 92, 107, and 121, Uniform Code of Military Justice, 10 U.S.C. §§ 892, 907, and 921 [hereinafter UCMJ]. The military judge sentenced appellant to a bad-conduct discharge, confinement for eighteen months, and reduction to the grade of E-1. The military judge further recommended that only twelve months of confinement be approved, if appellant made full restitution. The convening authority, as an act of clemency, limited confinement to fifteen months, and otherwise approved the adjudged sentence.

In his brief, appellant raises one assignment of error, post-trial ineffective assistance of counsel, which warrants discussion, but no relief. (Emphasis added.)

Post-trial delay

June 9, 2010 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

The CGCCA has issued a per curiam opinion in United States v. Sapp., a SPCM tried at U.S.C.G. Training Center Yorktown.

Before this court, Appellant has assigned two errors: (1) This court should consider the unreasonable and unexplained post-trial delay in determining the sentence that should be approved under Article 66(c); and (2) the promulgating order contains three errors. We grant sentence relief for post-trial delay and otherwise affirm. . . .

Notable delays in post-trial processing are found in the fifty-nine days apparently taken by the military judge to authenticate the record, the seventy-seven days taken after receipt of the authenticated record to produce the SJAR and send it to defense counsel, and the twenty-eight days between Convening Authority action and sending the record to Headquarters. The Memorandum forwarding the record gives no meaningful explanation for these delays, attributing them only to “administrative processing.”