Court-Martial Trial Practice

Some may remember United States v. Denedo, where the appellant won at the Supreme Court, but then his appellate lawyer failed to file a petition to CAAF in time–out of court, done, no relief. So here’s an interesting Coast Guard case–United States v. Reese III. Reese filed a petition for a writ of coram nobis.…

“An order requiring the performance of a military duty or act may be inferred to be lawful and it is disobeyed at the peril of the subordinate. This inference does not apply to a patently illegal order, such as one that directs the commission of a crime.” The accused has the burden to establish that…

I always tell clients that the specific sex offender registration requirements are complicated and depend on state law. Here’s a reason why. In New York a defendant can be forced to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life based on accusations a jury rejected. So the state’s highest court ruled last…

Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds This is an interesting read on what I usually refer to as confirmation bias.

I have argued for some time that sex offender registration is punitive not merely collateral to a conviction. This morning, the US Supreme Court granted cert in Gundy v. US to consider whether Congress’s delegation to the attorney general the power to issue regulations interpreting the federal Sex Offender Notification and Registration Act violates the…

During trial, the defense counsel make many decisions; sometimes there is an objection to evidence, sometimes not. How the appellate courts deal with allegedly inadmissible evidence depends on whether there was an objection at trial. If there is an objection the appellate court looks to see if the evidence was objectionable, whether the judge abused…

Since United States v. Hills, and then United States v. Hukill, the appellate courts have been trying to sort out quite a few cases on remand. Here is a list of the most recent CAAF actions. No. 18-0087/AF. U.S. v. Jonathan P. Robertson. CCA 39061. On consideration of the petition for grant of review of…

Go to Army publications After a lengthy absence from the general public, the following are now, again, available to the public. (ACCA decisions are still not available. Army Lawyer. See, Lore of Corps, Special Edition, here. There is an interesting short piece on “Command Influence ‘Back in the Day.’ Consequently, The Adjutant General wrote that…

SCOTUSBlog reports a petition of the day is: Campanelli v. Illinois, 17-1225 Issue: Whether the Sixth Amendment right to conflict-free counsel forbids multiple attorneys in a single public defender’s office from concurrently representing non-consenting, adverse co-defendants. Keep this in mind because this is a potential problem for ALL military defense counsel offices. For some reason…

We have a new book worth the read to litigators facing child assault allegations with Shaken Baby Syndrome “evidence.” Randy Papetti, The Forensic Unreliability of the Shaken Baby Syndrome: The Book. Arizona trial attorney Randy Papetti has brought nearly 20 years of experience and research to his valuable new analysis of shaken baby theory in…