Articles Posted in Evidence

You may be familiar with the quote: In every case involving [state your poison], we are confronted with relativity and the degree to which such conduct may have affected the substantial rights of the defendant. It is better to follow the rules than to try to undo what has been done. Otherwise stated, one ‘Cannot…

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…

An important change to the Federal Rules of Evidence begins today. That means, absent Presidential action, the rule will take affect in the military no later than 18 months from now. This is a significant change requiring the prosecution to corroborate statements against penal interest. On December 1, 2010, a new amendment to the Federal…

Professor Colin Miller uses an Alabama case to remind us that a prior misdemeanor conviction is not admissible under Rule 609(a). Under this Rule, then, it is clear that a party cannot impeach a witness through evidence that the witness has a prior misdemeanor conviction for a crime not involving dishonesty or false statement. But…

My good friend Bill Cassara and I have done a lot of BAH/TCS fraud cases at court-martial under the UCMJ over the years. Typically the case involves a lot of documents from DFAS. The prosecution then calls a witness from DFAS to lay a foundation for the documents and then has the witness testify as…

MAJ Hasan’s UCMJ Article 32 hearing and likely court-martial is drawing and will continue to draw lots of attention — of course, duh. But just as we have seen in other high profile cases there are opportunities for what I call teachable moments. Here are two from the item posted by CAAFLog about the witness…

“Now what I want is, Facts.. . . Stick to Facts Sir!” (Charles Dickens, Hard Times, p. 1, Oxford World’s Classics, 1998.) Evidence may be admissible under Mil. R. Evid. 803(8) as an exception to the hearsay rule. Prof. Colin Miller reminds us that the exception is intended to cover recorded facts, not opinions.

Here’s a reminder about authenticating emails based on a posting from Prof. Colin Miller at EvidenceProfBlog. To paraphrase Prof. Miller: And, like its federal counterpart, [Mil. R. Evid.] 901(b)(4) provides that By way of illustration only, and not by way of limitation, the following are examples of authentication or identification conforming with the requirements of…

The CAAF Daily Journal for 14 September 2010 notes the filing of a petition for review by John M. Diamond. Here is a FayObserver.com piece which documents some of the history of this case, including Michelle Theer’s abortive efforts to get a new trial. According to court documents, witnesses for the prosecution repeatedly testified that…

In two days CAAF has granted two urinalysis cases citing to Melendez-Diaz. Note Blazier is still undecided. In the Air Force case the defense did not object, in the Navy case the defense did object. No. 10-0668/AF. U.S. v. Jerrod D. NUTT. CCA S31600. Review granted on the following issues: WHETHER, UNDER MELENDEZ-DIAZ v. MASACHUSETTS,…