A pun too close to call. Article 15 and court-martial could be on the horizon for more Marines. Smile, you’re on security cameras. Despite the field overhead of video surveillance at the exchanges aboard Camp Lejeune and Marine Corps Air Station New River, N.C., Marines are betting the odds they…
Court-Martial Trial Practice Blog
Blackwater down – update
U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina said Justice Department prosecutors improperly built their case on sworn statements that had been given under a promise of immunity. Urbina said the government’s explanations were “contradictory, unbelievable and lacking in credibility.” And all charges have been dismissed, reports Air Force Times. In ruling one…
Major Hasan and his restriction
Attorney John Galligan says Maj. Nidal Hasan has excessive restrictions — including a rule barring any visitors when his attorneys are in his hospital room. Air Force Times reports. This same rule operates at the pretrial confinement facility. The Brigs are pretty good about letting counsel in to visit for…
Text MG Cleveland’s letter to Rep. Burton
Dear Representative Burton, Thank you for your letter expressing your and your colleagues concern regarding the pending Courts-martial of Petty Officers Huertas, McCabe, and Keefe. I understand your interest in these cases and can assure you that I am committed to protecting the rights of the Sailors who have been…
Missed appellate deadlines?
Here is the QP in Holland v. Florida Whether “gross negligence” by collateral counsel, which directly results in the late filing of a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, can qualify as an exceptional circumstance warranting equitable tolling, or whether, in conflict with other circuits, the Eleventh Circuit was…
Flipper
The Fall of a Black Army Officer: Racism & the Myth of Henry O. Flipper, by Charles M. Robinson III, Norman, Ok: University of Oklahoma Press, 2008. In his 1994 book The Court-Martial of Lieutenant Henry Flipper, Robinson, an historian of the frontier army, held to the view that Flipper?s…
Special sentencing for vets
Should military veterans get a break when they are sentenced for crimes? Asks a piece in the Wall Street Journal. This is interesting in light of some discussion on CAAFLog about sentencing in court-martial and sentence ranges under the UCMJ. Seems some civilian judges are more interested in giving a…
A well armed militia
A former commander in the Tennessee State Guard has lost an appeal to overturn his conviction for trying to provide his soldiers with homemade machine guns for possible use in defending the state. At trial and in his appeal, Mr. Hamblen argued that he and his soldiers had a Second…
Saving the SEALS
Army Maj. Gen. Charles Cleveland has responded to a letter that challenges the handling of a case against three Navy SEALs accused of mishandling a suspected terrorist. In the Dec. 15 letter, addressed to Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., Cleveland essentially refuses to drop the charges against the three men. "While…
Stolen valor report
David Vincent Weber arrived last month at a Ramona Veterans of Foreign Wars event in style: two stars on his shoulder and two Purple Heart medals pinned on the front of a Marine Corps uniform. Weber, 69, appeared in a federal courtroom in downtown San Diego yesterday with considerably less…