Court-Martial Trial Practice

The new Mil. R. Evid. may not apply to any offense committed prior to it’s effective date? Is there an argument that application to an offense prior to the effective date violates the ex-post facto clause. See Calder v. Bull, 100 U.S. 1 (1798). Article I, section 9 of the United States Constitution states in…

Occasionally there is a case involving bite mark evidence and testimony. This type of testimony is subject to challenge under Houser. Here I am talking about a case where the bite mark testimony goes to prove the identity of the accused. So, to that end the defense needs resources to challenge admissibility of the evidence…

I have already posted about IAC prior to trial in connection with GP’s. Here’s a case, Ostrander v. Green, 46 F.3d 347 (4th Cir. 1995) – from the Fourth no less — that is very interesting because it makes clear there is a different standard of review that Strickland. In its first opinion, the district…

Adam A. Field, Beyond Michigan v. Bryant: A Practicable Approach to Testimonial Hearsay and Ongoing Emergencies, 2012 IL. L. Rev. 1265 (2012).

The Ottawa Citizen reports on a new publication. The title of the new piece is, Former Office ‘amazed’ he stayed sane during court martial. Former infantry officer Robert Semrau, who was dismissed from the Canadian Forces for shooting a severely wounded Taliban insurgent on an Afghan battlefield, has ended a two-year silence with the publication…

Andrea D. Lyon, The Promise of Effective Assistance of Counsel: Good Enough Isn’t Good Enough, The Champion, NACDL, June 2012.

Proposed 18 USC § 3014, Duty to Disclose Favorable Information and Commentary Many recent cases have exposed the fact that federal prosecutors, whether through negligence or by design, all too often fail to abide by their constitutional duty to disclose information favorable to the defendant. To help ensure fairness in federal criminal proceedings, the Board…

Except in a slightly different context, but still a similar point. Errin Morris, Cognitive Biasl and Evaluation of Forensic Evidence, The Champion, NACDL, May 2012. Remember, USACIL and all the others get a full brief sheet on why the evidence should be tested and lots of facts. The subsequent testing is not done in the…

Here is an interesting post from one of my favorite sites – federalevidence.com Testimony by arresting officer from defendant’s suppression hearing (regarding what the officer saw as the only witness to the defendant’s confession to the charged crime) should not have been admitted as FRE 804(b)(1) former testimony in defendant’s subsequent drug distribution conspiracy trial;…

h/t to Prof. Berman TG. The title of this post is the headline of this new New York Times segment of its series “Room for Debate.” The NY Timesbrought together five leading lights to comment on this question (all of whom appear to supply variations on the answer “Yes”). Here is how the segment sets…