Court-Martial Trial Practice

Attorney-Client Privilege Protection Act of 2009 Is Introduced In the Senate (S. 445). Federal Evidence Review notes that Sen. Specter has re-introduced a bill that protects attorney-client privileged and work-product privileged information from use by prosecutors. This may, or may not, assist with the current issue about military email “access” issues.

The defense wins one. Actually, yesterday I had the pleasure of being a semi-final judge for the National Security Law Moot Court Competition hosted at George Washington Univ. Law School. 23 teams from law schools around the country competed. The two issues before the “U.S. Supreme Court” were: The constitutionality of a civilian being prosecuted…

Can Self-Authenticated, Certified Business Records Violate The Confrontation Clause? Federal Evidence Review, 30 July 2008. Pointing to United States v. Hemphill, 514 F.3d 1350 (D.C. Cir. 2008), the reviewers posit that Fed. R. Evid. 902 (Mil. R. Evid.) leads to “testimony” in violation of Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004).

Here, courtesy of Federal Evidence Review, is the proposed change to Fed. R. Evid. 804(b)(3). Should this become the federal rule, it will become the military Rule 18 months later, absent affirmative action to the contrary. It’s my understanding that the public comment period has closed.

United States v. Arrington, 296 Fed. Appx. 646, No. 08-4018, unpublished op. (10th Cir. 14 October 2009). The estranged wife of the accused had no actual or apparent authority to consent to a search of the accused’s hotel room. This was so even though the room was rented in the wife’s mother’s name and the…

Here is a link Argument Preview: Jury selection dynamics, SCOTUSBlog, 21 February 2009 – more later perhaps.

The prosecution of civilians at court-martial has been an interesting development since the Article 2(a)(10), UCMJ, changes. For a little background see the earlier musings on this topic. There has been only one private contractor ever indicted by the Department under MEJA for any sort of physically abusive or violent crime – Aaron Langston of…

First Person Civilly Committed as Sexually Dangerous Person Under AWA, Sex Crimes blog, 13 February 2009. Professor Yung is reporting an event reported to him. This is worth reading. I’ve had at least one prior child pornography client picked up while on parole for hanging around children in a local child’s play-park. To commit an…

United States v. Fisher, ARMY 20080012 (A.Ct.Crim.App. 20 February 2009). This case was submitted on its merits. After a review, the court specified two issues, both of relevance to trial advocates and military judges. After finding error, the court found no relief warranted because the error was not prejudicial. We have addressed something similar in…

Karen Franklin reports a “guest” piece, by Prof. Mnookin, Professor and Vice Dean, UCLA Law School. See actually, Jennifer L. Mnookin, Clueless ‘science,’LA Times, 19 February 2009. The article is about the congressionally funded National Research Council report on forensic science (look to my earlier posts). Several points that have been on my mind for…