Court-Martial Trial Practice

Consistent with military law, the federal circuits generally follow the principle that evidentiary errors in a judge alone case are often nonprejudicial. The basic theory being that judges are presumed to know and apply the law, and will ignore impermissible evidence even where there has been no objection. The Seventh Circuit recently considered the different…

There should be a reassessment and there should be “amended” rules for how cell phones, tablets, and computers are searched. Accessibility to computers and cellphones created an extraordinary change in how we communicate, and in particular how we retain and store private information about those communications. Along with the nature of the communications, the ability…

I’ve not heard the awesome power of de novo review discussed this way. On the basis of the entire record we cannot find that the court was wrong as a matter of law in finding an intention to desert. We are, however, by Article 66(c) of the Code privileged to say that we differ from…

Brother Bill sent me a link to this Onion piece. http://www.theonion.com/articles/partially-faded-hand-stamp-undermining-everything,30790/ It is a good teaching tool for those of us who go to court and actually try cases in front of members. I did a Marine case some years ago where the feedback was interesting. The members spent a lot of time looking at…

http://federalevidence.com/pdf/2014/02Feb/US.v.Boyce.pdf

Direct comments on the exercise of the right to silence are usually quite clear and should draw an immediate objection. Our friends at federalevidence review have a comment. What isn’t so clear are indirect or implied or subtle comments. This is a particular bugaboo of my when LE agents and trial counsel stray from the…

“CCTV footage taken at the time of the earlier incident showed the woman walking arm-in-arm with a man, and she later conceded she made the false report because she “regretted” her contact with him.” Yes, people do lie for what seems a silly reason. And yet the person lied on can end up in jail.

There a various ways to keep up with the law, politics, and policy surrounding military justice, or legal issues in general. You can use Goodle news. This allows you to have various news items collated on the Google News website. So for example, one of my several “search terms” is “military sexual assault. Google also…

Why do we ask members to promise that they will do the impossible? This is a question raised in a recent The Jury Expert. Jurors often promise to try their best to set aside prior experiences, attitudes or beliefs. But the desire to do what jurors believe is expected of them does not create the…

The Forensics Science Standards Act 2012. Stalled? Nope, gone. The Forensic Science and Standards Act of 2014 Stalled?