As a result of the current National Guard and Reserve activations I, like many of my colleagues, find ourselves representing Guard or Reserve clients at court-martial. From time to time they ask if they can have Guard or Reservists on their Members Panel (jury). The answer is no they can't…
I have two little helpers useful to cutting and pasting. Pure Text (Free-shareware). This little goodie allows you to copy text from the web, for example, and then paste to your document using your font, but without all of the formatting from the original text. If used in conjunction with…
Criminal lawyers can't learn from civil practice lawyers and vice-versa? Let's think of an Article 32, UCMJ, hearing as a deposition. In most cases it has the effect of a deposition in terms of fodder for cross-examination, direct, or preparation at trial (except for Air Force cases). [1] Also, in…
Professor Solum is getting some play in the legal blogs over the last day or so. Professor Solum explains the interpretation-construction distinction, in 8 February 2009, Legal Theory Lexicon: Interpretation and Construction, post. We can roughly define these two activities as follows: * Interpretation: The activity of determining the linguistic…
The Blog of Legal Times, 6 February 2009, has this entry: A seventh suspect was arrested and charged today for the murder of Juwan Johnson, the U.S. Army sergeant who was beaten to death by other soldiers during a 2005 gang initiation. Rico Rodrigues Williams, a 31-year-old former Air Force…
Lisa Demer, High court to hear Alaska man's DNA appeal, Anchorage Daily News, 7 February 2009. Osborne was born and raised in South Carolina, graduated high school there. He said he was accepted into The Citadel but it was too expensive, so he joined the Army. SCOTUSWiki has the various…
Not good? Is that the bottom line coming out of appellate results proffered by CAAFLog, Appellate Relief Data (8 February 2009)? CAAFLog's own "research" of Air Force opinions yields an approximate 4.7% chance of getting relief, and an undetermined chance of meaningful relief within that number of cases. CAAFLog also…
Check out, Island Justice: Guam Supreme Court Opinion Reveals Important Hearsay & Confrontation Clause Principles, Professor Colin Miller, Evidence Prof Blog, 7 February 2009. They discuss an interesting case of an assault victim. It was six days before police could interview her, and she was interviewed a second time after…
The Reporter, Vol. 35, No. 3 (Fall 2008) has a couple of articles worth reading. Major Jefferson McBride, CONFRONTATION CLAUSE: The Way Ahead with Remote Testimony, p. 20. Major Thomas Dukes, EXPECTATION OF PRIVACY? A Brief History, Including [United States v.] Long, [United States v. ] Larson, and DOD’s New…
Solomon Moore, Science Found Wanting in Nation's Crime Labs, N.Y. Times, 4 February 2009. John Eligon, New Efforts Focus on Exonerating Prisoners in Cases Without DNA Evidence, N.Y. Times, 7 February 2009. Criminal justice experts say exonerations have shed light on two circumstances once thought to be extremely rare or…