Court-Martial Trial Practice

Here is the footnote that should be of concern to all defense counsel, from United States v. Regaladozambrano, just decided. While the Court has declined to brand Capt [O’s] post-trial legal representation of the appellant as deficient, that restraint is exercised only due to the lack of any evidence of prejudice in the record before…

Five of the new cases are post-trial delay issues. More on the others later.

The October 2009 FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin is online. This issue has a very nice list, summary, and LE interpretation of each criminal law related Supreme Court decision from last term.

A Reserve Marine master sergeant at Camp Pendleton was sentenced to a reduction in rank and 60 days confinement after a court martial found him guilty of removing classified documents from files and possessing an unauthorized machine gun. The members acquitted Master Sgt. Reinaldo Pagan of other specifications involving the alleged mishandling of intelligence files…

Here, if you are not yet bored by the whole subject is the “Attorney’s Notice of Appeal of Sanctions and Related Orders,” for her $20K ding. She includes as argument [C]ounsel appeals all aspects of this Court’s Order in Document #28, wherein the Court proved its pervasively extreme and outrageous (extrajudicial) prejudice and bias against…

Stars & Stripes reports that: After avoiding any punishment for more than two years, Chief Petty Officer Michael Toussaint, who led the division from 2004 to 2006, was recently removed from his leadership post within Naval Special Warfare Group 2 and will be forced into retirement in January. In addition, Navy officials will decide whether…

Professor Colin Miller at Evidence Prof blog draws attention to a Wisconsin Law Journal article about a proposed change to Fed. R. Evid. 804. In September, the Judicial Conference of the United States adopted the recommendation of the Advisory Committee on Evidence Rules to amend Federal Rule of Evidence 804(b)(3) so that prosecutors, as well…

The Blackwater “incident,” several civilian contactor MEJA cases, have caused concern about the role and ability to control civilian contractors in a war zone. The international community will have the opportunity to take on [] definitional challenges within the next several years. The United Nations Working Group on the Use of Mercenaries as a Means…

I posted a while back about an ongoing issue with the dog-handling unit in Bahrain. Here’s an update from NPR Youth Radio. Since then, a Navy officer familiar with the case has told NPR that the report recommended courts-martial for both Toussaint and another noncommissioned officer from the unit. The recommendation for courts-martial was never…