Court-Martial Trial Practice

I was over that the Navy Discharge Review Board the other day. Their workload has increased significantly with the bad economy. They were up from 1400 to 2700 petitioners in 2009 over the prior year. It’s the economy, and it’s stupid to waive an administrative separation board if you are being processed for an OTH,…

United States v. Cowgill. WHETHER THE MILITARY JUDGE ABUSED HER DISCRETION IN DENYING THE DEFENSE MOTION TO SUPPRESS ALL EVIDENCE FROM APPELLANT’S HOME. The two underlying point were: potential erroneous information given for a search warrant (statements were factually incorrect, but believed to be true by the detective at the time), and if there was…

On habeas review of state court convictions, the detective’s trial testimony about the statements of two non-testifying co-actors which implicated the defendant in the shooting and which were used to confront the defendant during his interview violated the Confrontation Clause and constituted plain error, in Ray v. Boatwright, _ F.3d _ (No. 08-2825). Since Crawford…

United States v. Sezginalp: There is an interesting appellate procedural history. The court intially denied various efforts to have a post-trial R.C.M. 706 evaluation. But, the court did sua sponte reconsider the denial and did order a new R.C.M. 706 examination. On 6 January 2010, the ordered R.C.M. 706 evaluation report was released. The evaluation…

The Miami Herald reports that: A South Carolina congressman said Friday that five Muslim soldiers at Fort Jackson, S.C., had been removed from active duty, and four of them discharged from the Army, in connection with an ongoing probe into alleged threats to poison food at the large South Carolina base.

WRAL.com reports that members selection has begun in the Hennis court-martial. x reports that the military judge has declined to delay trial pending the outcome of Hennis’s District Court jurisdictional case. Navy Times reports: The skipper of Naval Air Station Pensacola, Fla., was temporarily relieved of command Friday for “inappropriate conduct,” Navy officials said. Capt.…

The Temple Daily Telegraph reports that: Defense attorney John Galligan said Friday that accused Fort Hood shooter Maj. Nidal Hasan could be back in Bell County as early as Monday. Hasan was notified Thursday that the therapy he was receiving at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio was officially finished. He has been under…

CAAF has issued an opinion in United States v. Bradford, a government appeal of a pretrial ruling. The appeal was on a military judge declination to pre-admit a Lab Package in a urinalysis case. AFCCA had no trouble saying that a declination to pre-admit evidence is appealable. CAAF had no trouble correctly saying that AFCCA…

Now online, the January 2010 Military Lawyer. This is a civil law issue.

The Article 32, UCMJ, hearing has been rescheduled for 1 June 2010. KWTC.com reports.