United States v. Blazier was argued at CAAF and you can hear the oral argument at this link.
The U. S. Supreme Court has granted certiorari in Bullcoming v. New Mexico. Courtesy of CAAFLog here is the granted issue:
Whether the Confrontation Clause permits the prosecution to introduce testimonial statements of a nontestifying forensic analyst through the in-court testimony of a supervisor or other person who did not perform the laboratory analysis described in the statements.
NIMJ was able to send Charlie Fowler to monitor todays Article 39(a), UCMJ, session.
1. Trial is continued until 4 November 2010 from 13 October 2010. Not sure of the reason. It appears Mr. Jensen asked the judge to hold the case “in abeyance” pending resolution of an (untimely?) writ which has been filed with NMCCA. According to Charlie the defense said the reason for the potentially untimely filing was “for reasons I can’t get into right now[.]” Huuuuuuuum, this has resonance. I think I’ll try this one in a couple of weeks. (Note to DMLHS, this citation to authority has to be on the top ten this year.)
2. Unsurprisingly to those familiar with military justice the judge ruled the orders to be legal.
Disagreement arose todday among supporters of Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin, the Army doctor facing military court-martial for refusing orders to deploy to Afghanistan after questioning Barack Obama’s constitutional eligibility to be president.
A group of retired military officers organized as the Veterans Council and the United States Patriot Union in Sheridan, Wyo., issued a white paper calling on Lakin’s legal defense team to change strategy.
The safeguardourconstitution website has a posting that a Writ of Mandamus has been filed with the Army Court of Criminal Appeals.
The site still lists the judges decision as pending.
A copy of the petition is not posted to the website.
Thanks to a friendly reminder from CPT Josh Johnson, here is a link to this years JAA Appellate Advocacy Seminar.
For VA attorneys it is cheaper than CAAF’s annual seminar and you get more CLE credits because of the program handouts. Of course you may have to miss the last day of LTC Lakin’s trial.
It has been (fill in the blank) days since LTC Lakin has been denied some discovery and witnesses for his case. His website has been updated in one place to say “Judge To Rule On Defense Request,” but the breaking news column still has the old verbiage, “Judge to Rules On Defense Request.” Of course we all know the judge has ruled. The point is though that someone is updating the site. The ruling has been adverse to LTC Lakin. I think we can say that the site managers have deliberately avoided placing adverse information on the site. Here’s some questions.
LTC Lakin and his attorney are advertising the case on the internet and a website is being used to solicit funds for LTC Lakin’s defense (we can take issue with the purported amount, compare for example an estimate of $100,000.00 to defend PFC Bradley Manning the Wikileaks accused). Mr. Jensen’s website links back to safeguardourconstitution “For More Information Visit the Case Site.” Is the advertising for funds truthful at this point, if the advertising is not truthful at this point is LTC Lakin himself complicit in a lack of truthfulness, and if LTC Lakin is complicit in this is he acting as an officer and a gentleman? At what point, if any, and I think this question goes beyond LTC Lakin, is a client responsible for “advertising” about their case which is ongoing? At what point is an attorney responsible for the accuracy of his or her advertising about a case they have ongoing? To what extent is advertising about an ongoing case consistent with Rule 3.6 of the Army (or similar other Service rule) professional responsibility rules – AR 27-26. As we bloggers know the Army has been reluctant to publically discuss and/or release LTC Lakin’s case.
Subsequent to the 2 September 2010 ruling LTC Lakin through counsel has said publically a number of times that an extraordinary writ will be filed. To date no writ appears to have been filed. The next scheduled event is for an Article 39(a), UCMJ, hearing on 28 September 2010. So now what?
Here is an interesting piece from Wired about the potential of command cover up and similar acrtivity in this set of cases.
I got to the Wired piece through this from congressmatters.com blog.
When bad news breaks it has become almost routine for those at the top to disavow all knowledge and let the hammer come down on those well down in the hierarchy. The pattern showed up again twice this week, and is now so common as to be almost standardized.
Courtesy of FourthAmendment.com here is a good case to know about.
Defendant and his wife got into a domestic dispute, and she called the police to tell them about his illegal firearms. They came to the scene and she consented to the search. He was there and vociferously objected. The police searched anyway. The search violated Randolph. Moreover, the defendant’s objections put the police on notice that she probably did not have apparent authority to consent. United States v. Tatman, 2010 U.S. App. LEXIS 19220, 2010 FED App. 0604N (6th Cir. September 13, 2010) (unpublished).
I posted that Mr. Galligan had sought to have the Hasan Article 32, UCMJ, hearing closed to avoid media attention.
Dallas news reports.
A hearing outlining evidence against U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan in last year’s massacre at a soldier readiness center should be public, a military official ruled Thursday.
Here is Professor Friedman’s post about Briscoe.
The Virginia Supreme Court today issued its decision in Briscoe on remand from the United States Supreme Court. . The court held that the former Virginia statutory scheme (under which the defendant had to call a lab analyst as his witness if he wanted to examine the analyst) was unconstitutional. This, of course, was the point that I sought to establish in bringing the petition for certiorari; Melendez-Diaz made the point clear, and now the Virginia Supreme Court has drawn the obvious conclusion.
The court held that the error was harmless in Briscoe’s case, but Cypress’s conviction was reversed. I expect his case will plead out.
Here are the SCOTUSWiki links on the Supreme Court litigation.
Court-Martial Trial Practice Blog