Court-Martial Trial Practice

Is there about to be another shift in interrogations law from the Supreme Court. Earlier we mentioned several commentators on the subject of how the “new” court is changing personal rights when faced with investigators. See an earlier post: Exclusionary Rule — To be Dead Letter Law — Possibly? Court questions Michigan v. Jackson from…

United States v. Forney, __ M.J. ___ (C.A.A.F. March 26, 2009). This is a case where the appellant was convicted on charges and evidence for a situation later declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court, in Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, 535 U.S. 234 (2002). This is the issue of actual versus virtual CP —…

United States v. Clayton, __ M.J. ___ (C.A.A.F. March 26, 2009). In this case one police officer testified, and he was allowed to testify about his personal knowledge of drugs found. However, the military judge also allowed the witness to lay a foundation for a redacted translation of a German police report of drugs found…

Persuasive Cross-Examination: Juries don’t like it when you cross over from tough to just plain nasty, ABA Journal – Law News Now, http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/persuasive_cross-examination/ (last visited Mar. 27, 2009).

This is a waivable issue, as SCOTUSBlog reports. The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that, if federal prosecutors violated a plea bargain with an accused who pleads guilty, that must be brought out at the trial and thus cannot be challenged for the first time on appeal. On a 7-2 vote, the Court cleared up a…

Here is the oral argument transcript from United States v. Denedo, argued at the Supreme Court this week. Also, here is the link to CAAFLog’s review of the argument.

One of my favorite newspapers, The Onion, has this comment on Stop-loss from the person in the street.

Here is a post from Legal Blogwatch: Here is a scenario that sounds like a law school exam question. It was after midnight when the client began to leave a series of six messages on the lawyer’s answering machine. In the first, the client said that he knew the home address of the Juvenile Court…

I’ll use the posting of JURIST to indicate that: The US House Judiciary Committee [official website] on Wednesday approved a bill HR 951 that would limit the government’s ability to compel reporters to disclose confidential sources. Under the terms of the Free Flow of Information Act of 2009, parties seeking the identity of confidential sources…

According to the MJ ruling in a case I just completed in Korea, the Intoxilyzer SD2 is reliable if administered in accordance with its instruction manual and the applicable AR. However, at Camp Casey, Korea, they are not admissible. That is because the MP’s do not conduct proper calibrations in accordance with the test instructions…