Court-Martial Trial Practice

The Naval Criminal Investigative Service is concluding a pilot program of recorded suspect interviews. From experience viewing this video-recorded interviews all of the military services should adopt the practice. Thomas P. Sullivan has put together a wonderful publication which documents the history and current status of recorded suspect interviews not just in the United States…

For those of us who do read crime noir novels for entertainment, here is an interesting perspective. This all quote from Law.com: Legal Blog Watch. Cloak-and-Dagger Justice Perhaps it was a dark and stormy night when Scott W. Stucky was sworn in as a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces.…

Ted Sampsell-Jones, Making Defendants Speak, (Download PDF) 93 Minn. L. Rev. 1327 (2009). First, as a matter of constitutional criminal procedure, the Supreme Court should overrule . . . (you’ll be surprised what he suggests here). Second, as a matter of evidence law, courts should abandon the Gordon v. United States test for Rule 609,…

First Circuit focuses on relevance tests to assess the admission of out-of-court statements offered for a non-hearsay purpose; ultimately the error was harmless, in United States v. Benitez-Avila, __ F.3d __ (1st Cir. June 9, 2009) (No. 08-1463). Trial counsel often want to call the investigator to lay the groundwork on how the investigation was…

The Best Of Everything: Fourth Circuit Erroneously Finds That Best Evidence Rule Doesn’t Apply In Firearms Appeal Federal Rule of Evidence 1002, the Best Evidence or Original Document Rule, indicates that To prove the content of a writing, recording, or photograph, the original writing, recording, or photograph is required, except as otherwise provided in these…

What Are Your Intentions?: Sixth Circuit Finds No Plain Error In DEA Agents Drug Quantity Testimony Federal Rule of Evidence 704(b) provides that No expert witness testifying with respect to the mental state or condition of a defendant in a criminal case may state an opinion or inference as to whether the defendant did or…

Here is Gene Fidell’s comment on H.R. 569, which asks be named in honor of former Chief Judge Robinson O. Everett.

If you’re a lawyer looking for first-rate appellate CLE, then please consider registering for the DRI Appellate Advocacy Seminar, to be held November 5–6, 2009 in La Jolla, California (near San Diego), at the Hilton La Jolla Torrey Pines. the (new) legal writer.

The Volokh Conspiracy is reporting on an interesting obscenity conviction in the Fourth Circuit. The cautionary tale – do not blog, chat, email, or in any other way discuss through the internet your secret fantasy of what you’d like to do with a child sexually. Besides being a very very obnoxious, unwholesome, and disgusting idea,…

A reporter for The San Diego Union-Tribune will have to testify as a defense witness in a court-martial, a military judge ruled Monday. In his 12-page ruling military judge Cmdr. Kevin O’Neill rejected Rogers’s attempts to assert a First Amendment-based reporter’s privilege and protection under the California shield law. O’Neill said he did not need…