In United States v. Kelly, __ M.J. __, No.17-0559/AR the CAAF decides that a court of criminal appeals has the power to disapprove a mandatory minimum punitive discharge, reversing the published en banc (but non-unanimous) decision of the Army CCA. While Congress changed the law to impose a mandatory dishonorable discharge in some…
Military personnel are told to believe the victim and consider the accused guilty unless, the quote from a former Air Force TJAG, there’s a silver bullet showing innocence. But what if the silver bullet isn’t available. Here the state trooper was saved by his bodycam from a false allegation. An attorney…
Spilman reports that: CAAF decided the Navy case of United States v. Andrews, __ M.J. __, No.17-0480/NA (CAAFlog case page) (link to slip op.), on Tuesday, May 22, 2018. Rejecting the Navy-Marine Corps Appellate Government Division’s argument that the failure to object to improper argument at trial waives any error on…
On July 11, 2017 (79 FR 59938-59959), the JSC published a Notice of Proposed Amendments concerning procedure and evidence applicable in trials by court-martial, non-judicial punishment proceedings, and the punitive articles of the Uniform Code of Military Justice as amended by the Military Justice Act of 2016, Division E of…
ACCA is back online to the public. On 27 March the court decided United States v. Ellis, a case in which: Appellant asserts that the government’s failure to provide a copy of the accident report was a disclosure violation entitling him to relief on appeal. Appellant assigns both constitutional and non-constitutional error. We…
The NMCCA decided United States v. Kmiecik on 17 May 2018. Kmiecik challenges the military judge’s decision to admit “a signed acknowledgment from the appellant that he understood the Marine Corps’ policy concerning the illegal use of drugs[,]” during sentencing. For trial counsel and judges, and defense counsel. The military judge did not articulate his…
Captain Milott has an interesting article about the use and interpretation of emojis and emoticons in criminal trials when they are part of a text, email, or some other social media message. Many sexual assault courts-martial involve texts and emails between the complaining witness and a suspect–is there a damaging…
Lagano, et al, The Air Force SVC Program: The First Five Years, 44(3) The Reporter 31 (2017). We begin by examining the creation of the SVC program within the Air Force, the expansion of victims’ counsel programs throughout the Department of Defense (DoD), and the growing list of victims’ rights. In the second part of this…
The number of exonerations involving wrongdoing by police, prosecutors and other government workers set a record last year, according to a report released on Wednesday. The findings are part of a larger trend that reflects America’s more aggressive attempts to expose and understand the causes of wrongful convictions. The new…
Here’s an interesting timeline I came across when reading about the different reasons people lie about sexual assault. International Timeline