The Fort Drum soldier charged with carrying a “ghost gun” at a Black Lives Matter protest in June in Troy has left the Army.
A Fort Drum official confirmed Noah Latham, 22, is no longer in the Army, as of Aug. 31. Mr. Latham was “separated administratively” from the Army, the official said.
The Jeffrey MacDonald murder case: A timeline of a major events.
One of North Carolina’s most infamous murder cases is back in the national spotlight, with the release this week of the FX documentary series “A Wilderness of Error.”
Former Green Beret Army doctor Jeffrey MacDonald was convicted in 1979 of the murders of his pregnant wife, Colette, and two small daughters, Kimberley, 6, and Kristen, 2, in their Fort Bragg, N.C., apartment in 1970.
We do that–right. Make an issue of the MCIO failures to investigate, their tunnel vision, their confirmation bias, and overall bias.
Here’s an Article that might help.
Lisa Steele, Investigating and Presenting an Investigative Omission Defense. 57 CRIM. L. BULL. (2021) (Forthcoming).
NMCCA published new rules effective 1 July 2020. Not this change. I’m agnostic whether this change will add confusion or not for the litigants.
Rule 17.5. Table of Pseudonyms.
(a) With the exception of merits briefs, all initial briefs in support of an appeal or petition shall include a separate table of pseudonyms filed with the Court under seal. See Appendix K. Notwithstanding the fact that the table is filed under seal, the party filing the table will serve an unredacted copy of the table upon all other parties to the appellate litigation. Absent Order of the Court, all parties and the Court shall use the aassigned pseudonymsin all filings, orders, and opinions.
14 September 2020, the court issued a published opinion in United States v. Livak, it’s a Moreno case analyzed with the new rules in mind.
Appellant claims that his due process rights were violated when his case was not docketed with this court within 30 days of the convening authority’s action as required by United States v. Moreno, 63 M.J. 129, 142 (C.A.A.F. 2006). Finding no error that resulted in material prejudice to Appellant’s substantial rights, we affirm the findings and sentence.” The court reviews the case considering the new post-trial rules for events at the trial stage. The takeaway point are,
A colleague provided this thought.
I refer from time to time to court-martial decisions from other countries. Obviously, they are not dispositive here, but there can be some interesting arguments or points come from them, which is why I bring you R v. Jordan, a decision of the Supreme Court of Canada addressing court-martial speedy trial issues.
In Jordan the appellant sought dismissal of his case for a denial of speedy trial. In summary, the court argued,
Per Abella, Moldaver, Karakatsanis, Côté and Brown JJ.: The delay was unreasonable and J’s s. 11(b) Charter right was infringed. The Morin framework for applying s. 11(b) has given rise to both doctrinal and practical problems, contributing to a culture of delay and complacency towards it. Doctrinally, the Morin framework is too unpredictable, too confusing, and too complex. It has itself become a burden on already over‑burdened trial courts. From a practical perspective, the Morin framework’s after‑the‑fact rationalization of delay does not encourage participants in the justice system to take preventative measures to address inefficient practices and resourcing problems.
Prof. Cole at CrimProfBlog brings us,
A fundamental concept in criminal procedure is that the trial must take place where the crime was committed. Without proper venue, a defendant cannot be found guilty of the charged crime. But where is venue when the crime is committed on an airplane traveling through the sky at 500 miles per hour? This article analyzes United States v. Lozoya, a 2019 decision from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that broke from the conventional wisdom of the Tenth and Eleventh Circuits in holding that the proper venue is the federal judicial district over which the plane was flying at the time of the crime. No legal scholarship has ever considered criminal venue in this particular context. This article analyzes the two main federal venue statutes, 18 U.S.C. §§ 3237 and 3238, and argues that neither the Ninth Circuit approach nor the Tenth or Eleventh Circuit approaches view the law correctly. The most logical outcome — prosecution in the district in which the plane ultimately lands — is undisputed. But the plain meaning of the venue statutes supports the assumption that airplanes in the “high skies” are a lot like ships on the high seas. When the Ninth Circuit reconsiders this issue en banc in 2020, it can solve the problem by holding, for purposes of criminal venue, that American airspace is considered “outside of any district” and thus the prosecution can bring charges where the defendant is arrested (i.e. the landing district).
Over at Global Military Justice Reform blog I posted about the NDAA 2016 and a “how are we doing” note.
I begin with,
In the U.S. National Defense Authorization Act 2016 (NDAA) the Congress made some significant changes to the UCMJ and the President’s follow-on Executive Order directed conforming changes and implementation regulations in the Manual for Courts-Martial (MCM). All of the materials are available at the DoD Joint Service Committee on Military Justice website.
When public confidence in our institutions and our leaders is flagging, we would do well to remember that pursuing a justice system fair and equal for all — free of political influence — and a decision-making process based on sound judgment and an honest effort to confront difficult truths are goals not easily achieved but always worth the effort.
Court-Martial Trial Practice Blog
