Military habeas corpus

**Summary and Analysis of United States v. Adams (C.A.A.F. 2025)**

Per curiam; writ-appeal petition dismissed for lack of jurisdiction.

I. Procedural Posture and Case Summary

Sergeant Thomas M. Adams petitioned the Army Court of Criminal Appeals (ACCA) for a writ of habeas corpus, arguing that his conviction violated Rule for Courts-Martial (R.C.M.) 707 and that his discharge was invalid. The ACCA dismissed the petition for lack of jurisdiction. Adams then filed a writ-appeal petition at the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces (C.A.A.F.). He asserted that the ACCA possessed jurisdiction because his discharge was not lawfully executed and thus his court-martial had not become final under Article 76, UCMJ. He sought a remand so that the ACCA could reach the merits of his habeas claim.

C.A.A.F. dismissed the writ-appeal petition for lack of jurisdiction. The court held that military appellate courts lack habeas corpus jurisdiction in noncapital cases once the court-martial becomes final and the punitive discharge is executed. C.A.A.F. further concluded that Adams’s discharge in December 2024 was valid under Article 71(c), UCMJ, and thus his case was final before he filed his habeas petition.

He had been convicted of serious offenses against children and had initially been sentenced to life with the possibility of parole. However, through a retrial and a resentencing hearing, he confinement was reduced to 260 months.

II. Key Legal Holdings

A. Military appellate courts lack habeas jurisdiction once finality attaches

C.A.A.F. reaffirmed Hendrix v. Warden, 23 C.M.A. 227 (1974), holding that Article 76 finality terminates all military appellate jurisdiction over habeas corpus petitions in noncapital cases. The court emphasized that the All Writs Act cannot expand its jurisdiction beyond Article 67.

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The court grounded its holding in:

Hendrix (Article 76 finality ends all military habeas jurisdiction),
Clinton v. Goldsmith, 526 U.S. 529 (1999) (C.A.A.F.’s authority does not extend to supervising military administrative actions after finality), and
United States v. Denedo, 556 U.S. 904 (2009) (coram nobis survives finality because it is a continuation of the original case, unlike habeas).

The court stressed that habeas is external to the original court-martial, while coram nobis is part of it, making the latter permissible after finality but not the former.

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B. Adams’s December 2024 discharge was valid under Article 71(c)

C.A.A.F. held that Article 71(c)(1)(B), UCMJ, specifies when a judgment becomes “final” for purposes of executing a punitive discharge. The statute states that finality attaches when:

“review is completed by a Court of Criminal Appeals and … the petition [for review at C.A.A.F.] is rejected.”
—Art. 71(c)(1)(B), UCMJ.

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Because C.A.A.F. denied reconsideration on November 22, 2024, the case became “final” for discharge-execution purposes on that date—even though Adams later filed a certiorari petition at the Supreme Court.

Thus, the December 17–18, 2024 discharge orders lawfully executed the dishonorable discharge.

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C. Supreme Court certiorari did not postpone Article 71(c) finality

C.A.A.F. rejected Adams’s argument that his case was not final until the Supreme Court denied certiorari on June 2, 2025. Although R.C.M. 1209(a) defines “finality” more broadly for direct-review considerations, Article 71(c) provides a narrower statutory rule for executing a punitive discharge. The court treated Article 71(c)’s specialized definition as controlling.

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III. Analytical Commentary

**A. The Court’s Reliance on Hendrix Restores a Bright-Line Finality Rule**

C.A.A.F. adopted a firm jurisdictional boundary: once a punitive discharge is executed after Article 71(c) finality, military appellate courts lose habeas jurisdiction entirely. This bright-line rule promotes finality, predictability, and strict adherence to the statutory structure that Congress crafted.

The court’s opinion reinforces that military habeas review lies exclusively in Article III courts once the court-martial process ends. The military courts cannot be used as an after-the-fact vehicle to relitigate confinement or constitutional complaints after execution of a dismissal or punitive discharge.

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B. The Court’s Statutory Interpretation of Article 71(c) Is Text-Driven and Formalist

C.A.A.F. applied Article 71(c) strictly, treating its internal definition of “final judgment” as controlling over any broader or more intuitive understanding of finality. The court viewed Adams’s certiorari petition as irrelevant to Article 71(c)’s statutory scheme.

This approach underscores the structural separation between:

finality for Supreme Court jurisdiction, and
finality for executing a punitive discharge.

C.A.A.F. noted that Congress may wish to reconsider this discrepancy given the 2023 amendments to Article 67a that now permit Supreme Court review even when C.A.A.F. denies review. But unless Congress changes Article 71(c), the court must apply the statute’s plain text.

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C. The Court Avoided Creating a “Dormant Discharge” Doctrine

Adams argued that the 2024 discharge was invalid at the moment issued and could not “spring into validity” later. C.A.A.F. avoided this problem by holding the discharge was valid when issued. By doing so, the court foreclosed any argument that military discharges may retroactively “activate” after Supreme Court action. This approach maintains administrative clarity and respects statutory procedure.

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D. The Court Implicitly Encourages Use of Coram Nobis Over Military Habeas

By reaffirming Denedo, the court highlighted that coram nobis—not habeas—is the exclusive post-finality vehicle for collateral relief in military courts. Habeas claims, by contrast, must proceed to federal district courts under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 after execution of the sentence. The court signaled that attempts to stretch habeas jurisdiction within the military system are foreclosed.

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IV. Conclusion

C.A.A.F. dismissed Adams’s writ-appeal petition because the military courts lacked jurisdiction to consider habeas corpus claims once his case became final under Article 71(c) and his punitive discharge was executed in December 2024. The court reaffirmed longstanding precedent restricting military habeas jurisdiction after Article 76 finality and clarified that certiorari petitions do not delay the execution of punitive discharges unless C.A.A.F. had granted review.

The decision reinforces a strict, statute-based finality framework that channels post-finality collateral attacks exclusively to Article III courts and preserves internal structural coherence within the UCMJ appellate system.

What about Habeas generally for military appellants?

Suppose Adams is still confined, or is released on parole or supervised release (or on SOR, a newly evolving issue). He can petition for habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 in federal district court. His issue in the military habeas petition was an R.C.M. 707 violation, notably not his Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial. Thus, a habeas is unlikely to succeed, especially if a district court were to find that the military appellate courts had fully and fairly considered the issue–to which a footnote that “the court has fully considered the issues raised by Appellant, including those under Grostefon , and they are without merit,” usually suffices.