Articles Posted in Uncategorized

Here is a link to the brief in Briscoe v. Virginia.  The case is a follow on to Crawford and Melendez-Diaz. 

Here is the Issue as reported by SCOTUSWiki.

Briscoe v. Commonwealth of VA:  If a state allows a prosecutor to introduce a certificate of a forensic laboratory analysis, without presenting the testimony of the analyst who prepared the certificate, does the state avoid violating the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment by providing that the accused has a right to call the analyst as his own witness?

For whatever reason it appears the military will stop (or reduce) profiling of journalists covering matters in Afghanistan.  Here’s:

Kevin Baron, Stars and Stripes, Mideast edition, Monday, August 31, 2009

RELATED STORIES:

• Army used profiles to reject reporters
• Pentagon: Reporter profiling under review
• Files prove Pentagon is profiling reporters
• Journalists’ recent work examined before embeds
• In the newsroom: Military puts its spin on PR story

ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. military is canceling its contract with a controversial private firm that was producing background profiles of journalists seeking to cover the war that graded their past work as “positive,” “negative” or “neutral,” Stars and Stripes has learned.

“The Bagram Regional Contracting Center intends to execute a termination of the Media Analyst contract,” belonging to The Rendon Group, said Col. Wayne Shanks, chief of public affairs for International Security Assistance Forces–Afghanistan. 

A decorated U.S. Soldier, from the State of Texas, filed suit today in U.S. Federal Court in Washington DC against a British Contractor for injuries sustained during a reckless shooting incident in Iraq.

Former U.S. Army Sergeant Kadim Alkanani is suing London-based Aegis Defence Services Limited, for an incident on June 3, 2005, in which Aegis contractor’s opened fire without warning on Sergeant Alkanani’s unit moments after they had passed through a check point on their return to base, thereby injuring Sergeant Alkanani and ending his promising military career.

Sgt. Alkanani was stationed in Iraq at the time and was a decorated soldier and a recipient of many awards, including the National Defense Service Medal, The Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, the Iraq Campaign Medal, the Army Services Ribbon, the Overseas Service Ribbon, and the Armed Forces Reserve Medal.  (Note, none of these are personal awards and are given to every soldier based on time or location of service).

NMCAA’s decision in United States v. Johnson, NMCCA 200900141 (N.M. Ct. Crim. App. 25 August 2009), nicely sets out the courts view of when and how bad language is subject to prosecution as indecent.  A totality of the circumstances factual and contextual test must be used it seems.

The precise parameters of what constitutes indecent language have been the subject of considerable debate over the years.

The court examined the impact of United States v. Brinson , 49 M.J. 360 (C.A.A.F. 1998) and United States v. Negron, 60 M.J. 136 (C.A.A.F. 2004).  In Negron the court stated that prospectively:

Following on the heels of NCIS’s recent testing of video-taping interrogations, it appears that OSI will start recording confessions.

Starting on 1 October, Air Force OSI will, as a matter of policy, make a video recording of ”subject interviews.”  Recording of witness and vicitm interviews will be optional.

/tip CAAFLog.

AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION STANDING COMMITTEE ON ETHICS AND PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITY

Formal Opinion 09-454 July 8, 2009

Prosecutor’s Duty to Disclose Evidence and Information Favorable to the Defense Rule 3.8(d) of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct requires a prosecutor to “make timely disclosure to the defense.

This ethical opinion reinforces the rule that the prosecutors obligation to disclose certain types of information to the defense is self-executing – that is Brady, Kyles, Giglio, and similar material must be disclosed even though the defense has not submitted a formal discovery request — and goes beyond what the R.C.M. and appellate decisions say.  So, for example, a prosecutor has an ethical duty to disclose certain information she learns during pretrial interviews of prosecution witnesses.

Here is an interesting case from the 9th Circuit on computer searches.  There may be some applicability here to military computer searches.  The opinion is written by the well respected Judge Kosinski.

CA9: Balco en banc: Computer search under Tamura not an excuse for a plain view; there has to be limits

The Ninth Circuit in Balco en banc (panel opinion: United States v. Comprehensive Drug Testing, Inc., 513 F.3d 1085 (9th Cir. 2008)) determines that seized computer information needs limits under the “venerable” pre-“information age” Tamura case (United States v. Tamura, 694 F.2d 591 (9th Cir. 1982)). This is a remarkable effort at keeping computer searches from becoming general searches or excuses for plain view inside the hard drive. United States v. Comprehensive Drug Testing, Inc., No. 05-10067 (9th Cir. August 26, 2009) (by Kosinski, J.

Here is the start of some commentary by Volokh about limits on fishing surfing expeditions.

SOR seems to be a current topic, here is a new post from Prof. Yung:

Another Free Exercise of Religion Issue for a Sex Offender

These days, sex offenders can’t even go to church in some areas. Not long ago the State of Georgia enacted a law prohibiting sex offenders from volunteering at church. Now a North Carolina sex offender is fighting for the right to attend church, albeit one that also maintains a day-care center.

The issue of post-trial delay and prejudice is on the front burner again as a result of CAAF’s decision in United States v. Bush.

Here is a repeat of part of a post of mine from April 2008.

1. After trial — sit down with the client and explain the post-trial process specific to the case. This is critical because the boilerplate post-trial advice given by the military defense and military judge is just that, generic non-specific advice.

Recently CAAFLog had a discussion about military appellate cases and publication or non-publication.

PACER is a pay to use system that allows access to lots of federal courts documents that are “publically available” but at a fee.

Recently a technology blogger I follow FutureLawyer had a comment about RECAP and PACER.