Court-Martial Trial Practice Blog

Veterans unemployment rates

July 3, 2010 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

Air Force (and the other) Times reports:

The unemployment rate for veterans rose slightly in June, to 8 percent overall and 11.5 percent for Iraq and Afghanistan-era veterans, a sign that expanding programs aimed at helping veterans find work are not working in a stagnant job market.

June employment statistics released Friday by the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics show the overall unemployment rate for veterans rose slightly from 7.8 percent in May. Still, the unemployment rate for veterans remains lower than the overall national rate of 9.5 percent.

Coast Guard collision

July 1, 2010 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

Coast Guard News reports:

Criminal charges ranging from involuntary manslaughter to dereliction of duty have been preferred by the Coast Guard against four boat crewmembers from Coast Guard Station San Diego in connection with a fatal collision between one of the station’s patrol boats and a civilian vessel in San Diego Bay late last year.

The charges were brought under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and are based on information discovered by the Coast Guard investigators looking into the December 20, 2009, collision that resulted in the death of one child and the injury of other passengers on the civilian boat. Rear Admiral Joseph Castillo, commander of the 11th Coast Guard District, is the convening authority in the case.

Ms. Bligh may be soon adrift

July 1, 2010 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

Navy Times reports that:

The former cruiser skipper who was relieved of command in January after years of “cruelty and maltreatment” toward her crew will be required to show a Navy board why she should continue her career, a Navy spokesman said Thursday.

Capt. Holly Graf, who was fired as commanding officer of the Yokosuka, Japan-based cruiser Cowpens on Jan 13, will go before a Navy Personnel Command “show-cause board” within the next few months to make her case for staying[.]

Up periscope

June 30, 2010 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

Mountain Home News reports that:

The stepfather of the five-year-old child who accidentally shot and seriously wounded a Mountain Home high school student in February was convicted of reckless endangerment during a court-martial June 22[,] and sentenced to six month’s confinement and ordered to forfeit $500 pay per month for six months.

SignOnSanDiego reports:

Not always a fan

June 30, 2010 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

I’m not a fan of the Center for Military Readiness. But I have to acknowledge they at least raised a very important point about military sexual assault cases.

Read the various articles I’ve posted about confirmatory bias in connection with this piece from CMR about Sex, Lies & Rape. Although written in 2006, the points resonate today just as clearly.

The possibly soon to be junior senior enlisted at WPAFB

June 29, 2010 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

Dayton Daily News reports that:

The Air Force has moved a step closer to deciding whether to court-martial the Air Force Materiel Command’s former top enlisted man on charges he sexually harassed airmen, misused his authority, and tried to persuade others to assign those women to his area.

The investigating officer who heard three days of testimony in May at a hearing for Chief Master Sgt. William C. Gurney at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base has submitted his summary of the testimony and his recommendations to Scott Air Force Base, Ill., which is handling the decision on whether to court-martial Gurney. It could be several weeks before the review of Col. Michael O’Sullivan’s report is done and commanders at Scott Air Force Base render a decision[.]

All too common

June 29, 2010 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

CAAF has decided: United States v. Contreras, No. 09-0754/AF

We granted review of the following issue:

WHETHER THE HOUSEBREAKING CHARGE SHOULD BE SET ASIDE BECAUSE THE UNDERLYING CRIMINAL OFFENSE, INDECENT ACTS WITH ANOTHER UNDER ARTICLE 134, UCMJ, IS A PURELY MILITARY OFFENSE.

Fouled by sports again

June 28, 2010 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

Navy Times reports:

The AP

A sprawling financial scandal at the Naval Academy — involving extravagant parties and a “slush fund” — was an embarrassment that helped lead to an early exit for the school’s superintendent, Navy Times has learned.

Vice Adm. Jeffrey Fowler faced “administrative action” in April as a result of a year-long Naval Inspector General’s investigation, said Rear Adm. Denny Moynihan, the Navy’s top spokesman.

Curses, now what

June 28, 2010 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

Gannet News While he still vacillates between regret and indignity over what happened in Iraq, he has given up thoughts of going back to retrieve a separate bundle of money that he says he found and buried in the sands — and Army investigators never discovered.

Army Times reports:

Less than two years ago, Earl Coffey stood on the shore of the Gulf of Mexico, a broken man, holding his Army uniform, photos and military medals in his hands.

The son of Kentucky coal miners, Coffey had watched his life unravel after his theft of a dictator’s desert treasure became an almost biblical curse — running through his hands like sand, landing him in prison and sending him on a downward spiral of homelessness, divorce and drug addiction.

With nothing left, Coffey tossed the remnants of his 13-year Army career into the surf — and began a long walk home to the Appalachian mountains of Harlan County, Ky. . .

Coffey, 36, has since rebuilt a quiet life among the coal mines that he escaped by joining the Army — only to become one of seven U.S. soldiers convicted in 2003 of “looting and pillaging” for his part in stealing the $586,000 in cash he found in one of Saddam Hussein’s bombed-out Iraqi palaces.

Remember, collateral consequences remember

June 27, 2010 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

On Wednesday, ACCA will hear oral argument in United States v. Vargaspuentas, No. ARMY 20091096, on these three interesting issues:

I. WHETHER APPELLANT’S TRIAL DEFENSE COUNSEL INFORMED HIM HIS GUILTY PLEA MIGHT RESULT IN DEPORTATION.

II. WHETHER COUNSEL’S ADVICE REGARDING DEPORTATION WAS INEFFECTIVE. SEE PADILLA V. KENTUCKY, 08-651 (2010); STRICKLAND V. WASHINGTON, 466 U.S. 668 (1984); HILL V. LOCKHART, 474 U.S. 52 (1985).