Court-Martial Trial Practice

Here is the 21 April 2009 Supreme Court decision in Arizona v. Gant. Basically it limits the scope of a warrantless car search. In the course of its decision the court did not overrule New York v. Belton, 453 U. S. 454 (1981), but concluded Belton was misunderstood and misapplied. This was a 5 –…

D.C. Circuit remands case for district court to determine which company records, including from an internal investigation, were material to the defendant’s defense “and to protect against the public disclosure of material documents in a manner consistent with Thompson’s right to a fair trial,” in United States v. Thompson, __ F.3d __ (D.C. Cir. April…

Here is a good article in the FBI LEB. M. Wesley Clark, Searching Cell Phones Seized Incident to Arrest, 78(2) FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, 25 (Feb. 2009).

One of the most potentially influential Supreme Court decisions for trial practitioners is still pending a decision – Melendez-Diaz. This is the issue of forensic reports as testimonial under Crawford. The betting appears to be that it will be a mind-blower written by Justice Scalia. On 6 April 2009, Professor Freidman, an amicus in the…

Army Lawyer, March 2009.

I take some back, almost. Again I was looking at the NKO Criminal Law Division’s practice tips and I came across this one dealing with the ““Blackout” defense to alcohol facilitated sexual assault.” No, it’s not. This title implies that the accused has deliberately gotten the complaining witness drunk. This is not the case in…

Jayme Evans, JAG Corps “Keistered” Justice In Foster Case, Canadian Free Press, 20 April 2009. No military prosecutions in recent history have garnered as much negative publicity for the U.S. Marines as have the cases of the Marines of 3/1 Kilo Company, ambushed in Haditha, Iraq, in November of 2005. But the wrongful conviction and…

Here’s an interesting Order published at Goodfellow AFB, which prohibits military personnel assigned to the 17th Training Wing from traveling to certain parts of Mexico. [T]he border areas of Mexico, including Tijuana, Nogales, Juarez, Nuevo Laredo, Acuna, Piedras Negras, and Reynosa/Matamoros. All active duty members, reservists and guardsmen in Title 10 status, attached to the…

Here is an interesting piece from Karen Franklin on her blog. Here is Edward Humes, Guilt by the Numbers, California Lawyer, April 2009. This should not be an issue in most military cases because there’s usually an identified suspect. But it’s interesting to see, once again, how law enforcement and prosecution control of the crime…

The hideous nature of an offender’s conduct must not drive us to forget that it is not severe punishment that promotes respect for the law, it is appropriate punishment. Although there are clearly times when anything less than severe punishment undermines respect for the law, it is just as certain that unduly severe punishment can…