Court-Martial Trial Practice

After an extensive investigation involving numerous intercepted recordings, to what extent can an agent provide opinion testimony about the meaning of the recordings? In reversing a conviction for a murder for hire conspiracy, the Sixth Circuit joins five other circuits (Second, Fourth, Eighth, Ninth and D.C.) in disallowingFRE 701 to permit an investigating officer to…

A trial is intended to be a win at the trial level. Good trial lawyers never litigate just for an appeal, but at the same time must remember to preserve error for appellate review in case. The Military Rules of Evidence allow for admission of obectionable hearsay (evidence) in some situations. Usually that is a…

False memories are a problem, especially in criminal trials. False memories can be created intentionally or through poor interview techniques (which I consider sort-of-intentional), and unintentionally because that is how the human brain can work. To quote Prof. Loftus: We all have memories that are malleable and susceptible to being contaminated or supplemented in some…

I have posted – perhaps ad nauseum – about objecting to context setting testimony of law enforcement witnesses: it allows the prosecution to smuggle in all kinds of hearsay and objectionable information, designed to affect the members. The typical answer to this skunk thrown in the “jury box” is not to ask the members not…

You will remember the National Academy of Sciences on report on forensic sciences that caused a – temporary – uproar. The Texas Star-Telegram reports on 11 August 2013: Across the nation, more than 70 exonerations have involved the improper use of hair sampling — a practice, now considered “junk science,” in which a strand of…

Client: It wasn’t me. I didn’t (send that raunchy email) (I didn’t download that porn). Atty: But look, they’ve got all this forensic data showing it came from your Army account while you were on line. Client: It wasn’t me. Atty: Come on, you can’t beat the forensics. Huuuuuuuum. Been there before? Expect to be…

The politicians made issue of several military sexual assault program personnel who got in trouble. They crucified them. Now here is another one who apparently is pretty much found to be a less serious case than postured. Little will be heard from the policians about this. But we on the defense side know that incidents…

We hear a lot about the sufficiency of OSI, NCIS, CID investigations these days because of the sexual assault cases. Generally the assumption is that the failure to investigate aids the accused. I disagree that it always aids the accused. There are many times the failure is in discovering helpful evidence. Recently (thank you) had…

Add in that military personnel are trained to obey. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that police officers can briefly detain and search a person if they have a reasonable, articulable suspicion that he or she is committing, has committed, or is about to commit a crime. But cops need no such reasonable, articulable suspicions…

A Survey of Federal and State Standards for the Admission of Expert Testimony on the Reliability of Eyewitnesses George Vallas Independent 2011 American Journal of Criminal Law, Vol. 39, No. 1, Fall 2011 Abstract: Eyewitness testimony is indispensible to the proper functioning of the criminal justice system. However, as Justice Frankfurter famously observed: “The vagaries…