Talking to a group of relaxing Soldiers former Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld reiterated that you have to go to war in what you’ve got.
Military.com, 22 May 2009.
“Any soldier who goes into battle against the Taliban in pink boxers and flip-flops has a special kind of courage,” Rumsfeld Robert Gates said, adding that Specialist Zachary Boyd may have hit on a new kind of psychological warfare. “I can only wonder about the impact on the Taliban.
Wife Doubts PTSD Bigamy Excuse, Military.com, 22 May 2009.
A Missouri woman whose husband was cleared of bigamy said she does not believe his claim that post-traumatic stress disorder made him forget his marriage.
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Don’t Repeal, Don’t Defend:
In today’s WSJ, Brian Hughes, a former Army Ranger twice awarded the Commendation Medal, makes a powerful case for ending "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
Welcome to the real world.
Earl Kelly, Academy Justice Tilted Toward Women: Double Standard in Mid Sex Cases During Rempt Era, The (Annapolis) Capital, 17 May 2009.
This issue is not limited to the Naval Academy. This is a natural all too predictable outcome of the pendulum shift.
Wisconsin (five days before Weaver) finds GPS tracking reasonable under the Fourth Amendment, but it is troubled by it and urges the legislature to limit it. State v. Sveum, 2009 Wisc. App. LEXIS 343 (May 7, 2009).
The New York Court of Appeals decided Weaver v. People, No. 53 (May 12, 2009), holding that the NY Constitution prohibits the use of GPS transmitters on vehicles without a warrant, following other state courts analyzing the issue under their constitutions.
The University of Pennsylvania PENNumbra has an interesting dialogue about plea bargaining, the unlimited unregulated powers of prosecutors, and those who might be innocent, but plead guilty anyway.
There are three points of view. Of the most interesting seems to be that innocent accused’s may plea guilty to avoid a wrongful conviction and increased sentence risk; and that’s a good thing for society and the innocent accused.
We talk a lot about appellate issues and whether they should be raised. Of course in the military we have United States v. Grostefon. There is also talk about changing the post-trial process and possibly placing more responsibility on the trial defense counsel to initially raise appellate issues (a broadening of Palenius). So here is an interesting little case on how a federal district court resolves appellate issues under Anders.
After a jury trial, Jeffery Carter was convicted of distributing crack, see 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1), and the district court sentenced him to 180 months in prison. Carter filed a notice of appeal, but his appointed counsel now seeks to withdraw under Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738 (1967), because he cannot discern a nonfrivolous basis for appeal. Because counsel’s supporting brief is adequate, we limit our review to the potential issues identified in counsel’s brief and Carter’s Circuit Rule 51(b) response to his lawyer’s motion to withdraw. See United States v. Schuh, 289 F.3d 968, 973-74 (7th Cir. 2002).
United States v. Carter, No.08-1419, 2009 U.S. App. LEXIS 9939, at *1 (7th Cir. 2009).
Andrew Taslitz has a comment on Concurring Opinions today: Government Lawyers’ Ethical Obligations and the War on Terror. This piece could apply equally to trial counsel and staff judge advocates, as well as defense counsel. The comment is about the current call(s) for action against the Bush administration lawyers and torture memos.
These stories stress the importance of government lawyers’ advisory role and start from the assumption that there is a sort of “truth” about what the law is on a particular matter. That need not mean that there is only one “right” answer, but it does mean that some answers are outside the realm of the plausible; that even within the plausible, the case for some answers is far weaker than for others; and that there are widely understood standards for what is “good lawyering,” including adequate research, factual investigation, consideration of opposing arguments, and sensitivity to the practical effects of government policy.
The articles also assume that government lawyers as advisors have an obligation to tell their client things he or she might not care to know, to act as the government’s conscience, and to be attentive to history and constitutional values as much as case law precedent.
Court-Martial Trial Practice Blog