Court-Martial Trial Practice

Here is this month’s technology/software item to go in your office-in-a-briefcase. Gwabbit. gwabbit is an Add-in for Microsoft Outlook and the BlackBerry that finds, gwabs and adds contacts from your emails to your Outlook address book with a single mouse click! Along with PureText, and CiteGenie, gwabbit add-on makes it easier when cutting and pasting…

Here is information concerning President Obama’s recent comments on DADT. Obama urges lesbian, gay patience overturning ‘unjust laws’ (text from the L.A. Times) Remarks by President Obama at the LGBT Pride Month White House Reception, June 29, 2009. Here is Volokh Conspiracy’s multiple choice test on the comments. To deal with this grave and urgent…

Abu Ghraib Scandal Haunts Lynndie England June 29, 2009 Associated Press KEYSER, W.Va. – More than two years since leaving her prison cell, the woman who became the grinning face of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal spends most of her days confined to the four walls of her home.

I’ve commented earlier that I do not see Melendez-Diaz altering the drug urinalysis case in terms of laboratory evidence. Here is some additional thought which I think supports my conclusion. Q2: Peer review, forensic experts. One question that came up during oral argument, and remains after the ruling, is the application of the ruling to…

Here is part of Professor Colin Miller’s recent post about search incident to arrest after Arizona v. Gant was decided by the Supreme Court. This is a good review of the issue. [Quote] In 1969, the Supreme Court established the boundaries of proper search incident to a lawful arrest in California v. Chimel, 395 U.S.…

It’s been a while since this issue has come up, and it does come up every now and again in military cases – DoD has approximately 50,000 foreign nationals on active duty. Some more fallout from the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Medellin v. Texas fell today from the California Supreme Court. The case is…

Here is the QP is Briscoe, a VA case which addresses one of the points raised in Melendez-Diaz. I have done this in drug urinalysis cases – asked for production of the lab witnesses as defense witnesses – and been refused. If a state allows a prosecutor to introduce a certificate of a forensic laboratory…

This seems to be the another post-Rodriguez case in which a petition has been denied. No. 09-0030/AR. U.S. v. Josh R. RITTENHOUSE. CCA 20050411. On consideration of the petition for grant of review of the decision of the United States Army Court of Criminal Appeals and in light of United States v. Rodriguez, 67 M.J.…

Are juvenile convictions subject to discovery and potential use at trial? — Yes. Mil. R. Evid. 609(d): Evidence of juvenile adjudications is generally not admissible under this rule. The military judge, however, may allow evidence of a juvenile adjudication of a witness other than the accused if conviction of the offense would be admissible to…

Dog sniffs of the exterior of a vehicle are not searches under the Fourth Amendment. See United States v. Olivera-Mendez, 484 F.3d 505, 511 (8th Cir. 2007). “Such a dog sniff may be the product of an unconstitutional seizure, however, if the traffic stop is unreasonably prolonged before the dog is employed.” United States v.…