Military.com reports:
The soldier who tried to blow the whistle on an alleged plot to kill Afghan civilians for sport has been put in solitary confinement in a windowless cell for 23 hours a day, his family said.
The father of Spc. Adam Winfield is objecting to the conditions at Joint Base Lewis-McChord south of Seattle, and wants the soldier moved to a different facility.
Some years ago LCDR Walter Fitzpatrick was prosecuted and convicted at court-martial and later retired. After that he began a website called JAGHunter. Initially he used the site to lambast any of the Navy JAG’s involved in his case along with his commanders. Over the years there have been other oddities from the retired LCDR. He became involved in the birther movement. The retired LCDR has been vocal in his support of LTC Lakin. And more recently he was arrested and being prosecuted because he wanted to arrest some public officials for actions he didn’t like.
Fitzpatrick was arrested in April after he interrupted a closed door grand jury hearing in an attempt to make a citizens arrest of jury foreman Gary Pettway. Fitzpatrick felt Pettway and the jury was illegally blocking his attempts to indict President Obama.
Fitzpatrick has said he believes Obama is not an American citizen and is serving illegally as president.
United States v. Pippins, is a reminder that when a person possesses drug for a persons own use and/or distribution, the possession is an LIO of the use or the distribution.
A review of multiplicity in this case centers on whether the appellant’s possession of BZP is in the same act or course of conduct with her use and distribution of BZP. See United States v. Paxton, 64 M.J. 484, 490 (C.A.A.F. 2007); United States v. Teters, 37 M.J. 370, 373 (C.M.A. 1993). Possession is a lesser included offense of both use and, under the facts of this case, distribution. See MANUAL FOR COURTS-MARTIAL, UNITED STATES (2008 ed.), Part IV, ¶ 37d. See also United States v. Zubko, 18 M.J. 378, 385-86 (C.A.A.F. 1984).
Thus, any time an accused is charged with both use and possession or distribution and possession of the same amount, there should be a dismissal for multiplicity.
Here is a link to the 29 September 2010, JAGINST 5813.1B, Standardization of General Courts-Martial and Special Courts-Martial Verbatim and Summarized Records of Trial.
Thanks to LawProfsBlog here is a link to an interesting article:
Regulating the Plea-Bargaining Market: From Caveat Emptor to Consumer Protection
Stephanos Bibas, University of Pennsylvania Law School, U of Penn Law School, Public Law Research Paper No. 10-33, California Law Review, Vol. 99, Forthcoming
For all of the criticisms of military justice and the UCMJ, you don’t have this at court-martial as tipped by Sentencing Law & Policy blog.
Cargill, a federal public defender, was perturbed by a rarely discussed U.S. court rule that critics say conflicts with the presumption of judicial openness. In the Western District of Virginia, as in many other U.S. court districts, a probation officer makes a secret sentencing recommendation to the judge. Cargill accidentally saw the probation officer’s recommendation for his client. The report was "misleading and inaccurate," Cargill wrote in a protest letter. (Emphasis added.)
Here is a link to the full article in the Roanoke (VA) Times.
World Net Daily quotes Neal Puckett as follows:
He confirmed to WND that there will be new directions for the defense, but could not elaborate.
"All I can really say is the case is going to be handled differently from here on out," he said.
Here SignOn San Diego reports the unusual situation of public release of pretrial agreement “discussions.”
The Coast Guardsman piloting the boat that killed 8-year-old Anthony DeWeese might have served a year or less in prison if his lawyers had pursued a plea deal dangled by the prosecution.
It is unclear how the emails surfaced publically.
I posted before about the CO of USS OHIO being detached for cause and the number of Navy CO’s DFC’d this year. Now Navy Times has obtained a copy of documents related this case which appears to include a copy of the command investigation.
The arrival of a birthday card in the ship’s mail addressed to Capt. Ronald Murray Gero, who was turning 56, marked the beginning of the end of his command of the guided-missile submarine Ohio.
It appears various members of the crew started collecting evidence, and then:
Courtesy of fourthamendmentlaw.com here is an interesting summary of search law from the Oregon Federal Public Defender.
First he acknowledges that a persons privacy right has been restricted over the years and with the advent of technology privacy may get harder to protect.
A. Introduction
The revolution of the Warren Court, especially in the area of search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment, was largely an expansion of federal constitutional rights in the face of state practices that limited the protection of individual rights embodied in the Bill of Rights. The following outline of federal cases construing the protections of the Fourth Amendment reflects a dynamic tension between the need to secure evidence to convict law breakers and the protection of citizens’ reasonable expectations of privacy. The result has been an overall contraction of privacy rights. This outline sets out basic principles and counterpoints from which criminal defense lawyers can fashion arguments for a more expansive view of the Fourth Amendment’s protections.
Court-Martial Trial Practice Blog