State Department investigators say Chief Engineman (SW) Arturo Puente at Jacksonville’s Mayport Naval Station has used a false name for the last 22 years while working at U.S. embassies in Rome and Panama, according to the Florida Times-Union newspaper.
Navy Times reports. No indications of a court-martial or any UCMJ violations.
Here is Randy Wilson’s letter to his children about being a trial lawyer. His thoughts are equally applicable to both sides in a court-martial.
Two of my children decided to go to law school. One just passed the bar exam, and the other is in the third year of law school. This is a letter I just wrote to them offering some of my views on the practice of law.
I’ve had members refer clients; a former TC as a client; and government witnesses refer clients.
Federal law should govern a federal NCIS search on a military base for evidence of a murder of a civilian employee on the base that ends up prosecuted in state court. The court finds that this is a narrow issue in this case. The security search of defendant’s car on the military base was also valid. State v. Torres, 2009 Haw. App. LEXIS 781 (December 15, 2009).
Fourthamendment.com.
I follow futurelawyer.com because he has one of the great sites for lawyers like myself who travel with an office-in-the-briefcase. Here is an interesting blog for the end of the year. No this isn’t a gadget or a piece of software. But the “procedure” may come in handy. Hopefully it doesn’t bowl you over with laughing too hard.
Regular readers of this blog know that I have dropped smart phones in various water graves; twice, in the toilet (don’t ask), and once in a swimming pool, and once in Tampa Bay. In each case, I did my best to dry them out, but, alas, they died a terrible death. Now, LifeHacker informs me that I could have dried them in a bowl of rice, which, because of its ability to soak up moisture, can save wet electronics if applied soon enough. Since my accidents, I have been a lot more careful with my smartphones, so I hope I never have to try this one out. However, if it happens to you, keep this one in your pocket just in case.
Testimonial: Rice Resurrects Even the Most Soaked of Gadgets – Cellphones – Lifehacker.
Airman 1st Class Corey Hernandez pulled the trigger. Nothing was supposed to happen, except the metallic click of the hammer striking the firing pin.
Instead, the pistol fired.
Until Dec. 10, when the 23-year-old Garcia died, the Air Force had not had any reported incidents of airmen playing Trust.
Thanks to howappealing.law.com, here is a Ohio State Supreme Court opinion in State v. Smith. The issue is warrantless searches of cell-phones. While this issue may have been raised in a court-martial, I don’t see a relevant military appellate decision. So the issue is apparently an open one for court-martial cases.
Here is a link to a New York Times editorial on the Ohio case.
The Ohio Supreme Court has struck an important blow for privacy rights, ruling that the police need a warrant to search a cellphone. The court rightly recognized that cellphones today are a lot more than just telephones, that they hold a wealth of personal information and that the privacy interest in them is considerable. This was the first such ruling from a state supreme court. It is a model for other courts to follow.
The Army’s attempt to stem a rising tide of suicides made it impossible for a Fort Bliss soldier convicted of cruelty toward subordinates to get a fair trial, the soldier’s parents say.
"I still maintain that this was a miscarriage of justice," said John Taylor, father of Pvt. Jarrett Taylor. "They needed a conviction and they got it. É This is a sham."
Taylor said his son, a sergeant at the time, was trying to help soldiers on their first deployment in Iraq survive in a combat zone.
Jury instructions are too often so poorly written that even the most intelligent juror cannot understand them. That’s a serious problem. So how can we make jury instructions more understandable? Prof. Peter Tiersma offers many concrete suggestions in this article, available for free download on SSRN. If you’re a trial judge or trial lawyer, you need to read it.
From the (new) legal writer blog. Instructions given in a court-martial prosecution under the UCMJ can at times be confusing. Certainly the current practice in a court-martial of reading the instructions and then giving a written copy does help somewhat to alleviate potential issues from reading only.
FederalEvidence blog has this update on the status of a reporter privilege. As commented earlier, under Mil.R. Evid. 1103, any new evidence rule will become applicable to court-martial cases.
After many weeks of being listed on the Senate Judiciary Committee business calendar, on December 10, 2009, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved by a vote of 14 to 5 an amended version of S. 448, the Free Flow of Information Act of 2009.
The Federal Evidence Review will continue to monitor action on the House and Senate measures. For more information concerning the legislation, see Free Flow of Information Act of 2009 Legislative History Page.
FrumForum interviewed retired Major Merideth A. Bucher, author of the much cited paper, The Impact of Pregnancy on U.S. Army Readiness.
Bucher explains that a woman who becomes pregnant ceases to be available for combat service. She will be returned home; her unit is left missing a body, a soldier.
She passionately told of her own experience: Two days before Desert Storm was to begin the female intelligence officer in the Major’s battalion became aware she was pregnant. Because she could not deploy and was sent home the battalion was left vulnerable by having to fight without an intelligence officer present. By losing one person everyone else has to work that much harder to get the mission accomplished. And when a woman soldier in particular gets pregnant, Bucher argues, “it weakens every female soldier standing as a member of that unit. If one woman does that it taints the water for everybody.”
Court-Martial Trial Practice Blog
