Court-Martial Trial Practice Blog
APPELLATE ADVOCACY
Tessa Dysart at Appellate Advocacy Blog posts, ““This is Not Proper Appellate Advocacy”: Third Circuit Slaps Sanctions on Attorney Who Copied and Pasted Trial Court Briefs. The attorney was ordered to personally pay the defendant’s costs.
For a historical segue—you might remember that the NMCCA once had a problem of cut-and-pasting, largely wholesale the Government Answer to Appellant’s brief. In United States v. Jenkins, the court took up,
WHETHER THE LOWER COURT’S VERBATIM REPLICATION OF SUBSTANTIAL PORTIONS OF THE GOVERNMENT’S ANSWER BRIEF AS THAT COURT’S OPINION CONSTITUTES AN ABUSE OF DISCRETION, NEGATES ANY APPEARANCE OF JUDICIAL IMPARTIALITY AND SUBSTANTIALLY UNDERMINES THE INTEGRITY OF THE OPINION.
United States v. Jenkins, 60 M.J. 27, 28 (C.A.A.F. 2004).
‘The CCA’s opinion in this case replicates large portions of the statement of facts, analysis, and conclusions of law from the Government’s Answer. On such a record we cannot disaggregate the Government’s argument from the CCA’s review. Therefore, we cannot determine that Appellant received the “awesome, plenary, and de novo” review to which he was entitled by law. See Duncan, 38 M.J. at 479 (citing Cole, 31 M.J. at 270). In short, the fact that Appellant received some of what he was entitled to does not mean that he received all to which he was entitled. The lower court’s opinion indicates that he did not.”
60 M.J. at 30.
One other problem is that depending on the age of past documents you might forget to make sure the law is still current.