Articles Posted in News of the Weird & Strange

Here is how the blog Suits & Sentences reports United States v. McPherson.

Army deserter lands honorable discharge, somehow

An odd case recently resolved by the U.S. Army Court of Criminal Appeals shows how a soldier convicted of desertion can still take home an honorable discharge. It’s all a matter of timing and regulatory ambiguity.

It’s still happening.  I remember in my days as deputy at Navy Appellate Defense the occasional question from clients:  “I just got an honorable discharge in the mail, what do I do?”

This is the headline of a titillating article in by Travis Tritten, Stars and Stripes, Pacific edition, Wednesday, September 30, 2009

MANILA, Philippines — Master Chief Petty Officer John W. Bench Jr. appeared to be a model sailor on the rise, headed for a new assignment carrying greater status and expanded responsibilities.

But on Aug. 30, just a week before he was to become command master chief of the U.S. Navy’s Command Task Force 76, Bench killed his son, bludgeoned his wife with a baseball bat and injured his daughter in their home on Sasebo Naval Base, Japan.

Then Bench fled on his motorcycle and veered into a bus on an expressway. He stood up and was struck and killed by an oncoming car.

The title of a post on Military.com, September 23, 2009, by Ben Avey

YOKOSUKA, Japan – The Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) Far East field office has started a public information campaign to get the word out about rewards for information leading to the arrest and conviction of a person who commits or conspires to commit espionage. The rewards can run as high as $500,000.

In light of this incident – –

Feds: NC terror suspects targeted US military

file photo provided by the Department of Justice, Daniel Patrick Boyd is shown.

By MIKE BAKER, Associated Press Writer Mike Baker, Associated Press Writer

RALEIGH, N.C. – Two North Carolina terrorism suspects plotted to kill U.S. military personnel and one of them obtained maps of a Marine Corps base in Virginia to plan an attack, prosecutors said Thursday.

That is the title of an article by Ashby Jones, on the Wall St. Journal Law Blog, pour encourager les autres.

And do as adversaries do in law, Strive mightily but eat and drink as friends.
— From William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew

We wonder, after reading this admonition from the Bard, just how many lawyers these days manage to live up to it. Lawyers, let’s toss it over to you. Give a quick mental rundown of your opposing counsel and tally up the number of those people with whom you’d “eat and drink as friends.” We’re betting it’s few, if any.

Putting aside the applicability of the line to modern-day practice, it nevertheless inspired a federal judge in Philadelphia, Gene E.K. Pratter, to rule recently that, as part of a lesson in civility, two opposing lawyers must sit down and have a meal together. Click here for the story, from the Philly Legal Intelligencer.

Is the title of an article by Trista Talton – Staff writer, Marine Corps Times.
Posted : Monday Sep 21, 2009 6:26:12 EDT

It was supposed to be a game.

But now Nelson, 25, will spend the next eight years in prison for killing Malone with an accidental gunshot to the forehead — the result of a game gone terribly wrong, a game he and his fellow members of 2nd section, Scout Platoon, 2nd Tank Battalion, called “Trust.”

Reads a CBS News piece from SABILLASVILLE, Md., Sept. 21, 2009

Marine who Toured U.S. Touting Heroics in Afghanistan Exposed as Fraud

• In this July 22, 2008 photo, U.S. Marine Sgt. David Budwah is shown during a visit with children at Camp West Mar in Sabillasville, Md. (AP Photo/Herald-Mail, Yvette May)