Court-Martial Trial Practice

Professor Colin Miller has a comment today on his blog about United States v. Matthews, 68 M.J. 29 (C.A.A.F 2009) He illustrates that Mil. R. Evid. 606 mirrors the federal rule but has the additional exception for “command influence” in the Members deliberation room. Chain Of Command: Military Case Reveals Interesting Exception To Military Rule…

An American war resister one step away from being extradited to the United States has learned she’ll get to stay in Canada a little longer. A judge has ordered a new pre-removal risk assessment for Kimberly Rivera, a 27-year-old mother of three who deserted the U.S. army in 2007 because of her opposition to the…

Monday, August 10, 2009: Fourth Circuit affirms CIA contractor detainee abuse conviction, Andrew Morgan [JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit [official website] on Monday affirmed [opinion, PDF] the conviction of a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) [official website] contractor on assault charges related to the abuse of an Afghan detainee [JURIST report].…

Putting the war in Afghanistan on trial Holly Lewis reports from the court-martial of war resister Victor Agosto, who won even before his trial for refusing to deploy to Afghanistan began. (She saw more of the summary court-martial than his lawyer did.) August 10, 2009 Through the looking glass THE MORNING sun beat down on…

Here’s the trial lawyers guide to those difficult to read, hard to interpret, and impossible to reconcile appellate decisions. Attribute Everything Mysterious To ‘Quantum Flux’ A reading of Gabriel Fournier’s The Eclipse Of Infinity reveals that the new science-fiction novel makes more than 80 separate references to “quantum flux,” a vaguely defined force the author…

Lynndie England of Abu Ghraib fame will be speaking about her autobiography this Friday, 14 August 2009, at noon, at the Madison Building of the Library of Congress , Room LM139. LCPA Veterans Forum August 14, 2009, 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM LM 139 First floor James Madison building Lynndie England discusses her biography “Tortured:…

Here is a neat website that allows you to calculate a deadline and due dates. Not an application, so there’s nothing to install on your computer or iPhone or BB – and for the overhead conscious it’s free. WolframAlpha. There’s a free download which will allow you to have a widget in your Vista sidebar,…

We previously noted the serious allegations against attorney Paul Bergrin for alleged racketeering, witness tampering, and murder. Stunning development David Kocieniewski, Lawyer’s Ways Spelled Murder, U.S. Is Charging, NY Times, 20 May 2009. In June Mr. Bergrin plead not guilty to these charges, according to NJ.com. Sarah Rice, The Star-Ledger Mr. Bergrin has had a…

Here is a link to the Bond Amendment. The amendment replaced what was known as the Smith Amendment. There were good and bad changes. Good was the change to “served” rather than “sentenced” to more than one year; bad is that all agencies and all types of clearance are covered. Now, just because the client…

(1) An accused may not enter inaccurate, inconsistent, improvident, or uninformed pleas of guilty, and the military judge may not permit the accused to do so. UCMJ art. 45, 10 U.S.C. § 845 (1988); see United States v. Schwabauer, 37 M.J. 338 (C.M.A. 1993). (2) Therefore, before the military judge may accept the accused’s pleas…