Court-Martial Trial Practice

21 March 2011 will see oral argument in Tolentino v. New York (linked to SCOTUSBlog).

Issue: Whether pre-existing identity-related governmental documents, such as motor vehicle records, obtained as the direct result of police action violative of the Fourth Amendment, are subject to the exclusionary rule?

SCOTUSBlog has an argument preview here.

A lurker put me on to this blog, because of an item:

Federal Government Compares Seminoles to Al Qaeda in Military Commissions Case.

United States v. Hartman.

On Appellant’s petition, we granted review of the following issue:

WHETHER APPELLANT’S CONVICTION UNDER ARTICLE 125, UCMJ, FOR CONSENSUAL SODOMY IN THE PRESENCE OF A THIRD PERSON VIOLATES THE DUE PROCESS CLAUSE OF  THE FIFTH AMENDMENT.

Marine Corps Times reports:

Thirty-five percent of first lieutenants vying for promotion this year were instead sent packing by a board tasked with tightening junior-officer ranks.

. . .

Air Force Times reports a case of reach for the stars:

Allan Poulin Jr. dreamed of flying a fighter and landed a job interview with an F-16 reserve unit. The squadron leadership didn’t want him. The wing commander offered Poulin a job anyway.

Poulin struggled at Officer Training School. The school commander signed off on his dismissal. A one-star ordered him reinstated.

It’s over.

This years series of presentations was much better than previous years.  The topics and speakers were much more relevant, while being sufficiently edgy at the same time.  Gone are the days where a “prof” from TJAGSA would go through slides reporting the school’s view of “this years” military appellate case law.  Such predictable “modules” could be stultifying.  And removing rote school teaching from the agenda is not a bad thing when you consider the professional makeup of the likely audience.  However, going too far the other way to discuss books about submarine recovery/searches risks irrelevance.

General Chiarelli was among the best of the speakers.  He had quite a bit of interest to talk about.  But the under-stated points he made were about a commanders relationship to her lawyer and vice-versa.  His relevant points:

The court is gradually putting the handouts up on the website.

in the civilian courts.  Sentencing Law & Policy reports:

The Ninth Circuit has an interesting opinion concerning the withdrawal of pleas in US v. Bonilla, No. 09-10307 (9th Cir. March 11, 2011) (available here), which relies heavily on the Supreme Court’s important Sixth Amendment ruling last Term in Padilla v. Kentucky.  Here is how the Bonilla opinion begins:

Jose Hernandez Bonilla, Jr. appeals the district court’s denial of his pre-sentencing motion to withdraw his guilty plea.  Bonilla pled guilty to possession of an unregistered firearm and to being a felon in possession of a firearm.  He has been a lawful permanent resident of the United States for over thirty years; his wife and two children are all U.S. citizens.  When shortly after he had entered his plea Bonilla was for the first time informed that he would be deported on the basis of his plea, he moved to withdraw it, asserting that he would not have pled had he known about the immigration consequences.  We hold that the district court’s denial of Bonilla’s motion to withdraw his plea was an abuse of its discretion.

Huffington Post reports that the USNA has expelled three for synthetic spice related charges, for a total of 11 dismissals in 2011.

Air Force Times reports further action on the military draw down:  12 Article 15’s for involvement with “spice.”

According to Foreign Policy: