Court-Martial Trial Practice Blog

Stop-loss

March 27, 2009 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

One of my favorite newspapers, The Onion, has this comment on Stop-loss from the person in the street.

Threats by clients

March 27, 2009 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

Here is a post from Legal Blogwatch:

Here is a scenario that sounds like a law school exam question.

It was after midnight when the client began to leave a series of

Journalist privilege.

March 27, 2009 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

I'll use the posting of JURIST to indicate that:

The US House Judiciary Committee [official website] on Wednesday approved a bill HR 951 that would limit the government's ability to compel

reporters to disclose confidential sources. Under the terms of the Free

Are military breath tests reliable?

March 26, 2009 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

According to the MJ ruling in a case I just completed in Korea, the Intoxilyzer SD2 is reliable if administered in accordance with its instruction manual and the applicable AR. However, at Camp Casey, Korea, they are not admissible. That is because the MP's do not conduct proper calibrations in accordance with the test instructions and AR on how Army breath tests are to be conducted. For the military judge this failure constitutes a major departure from the regulation and not a minor failure.

Note: this is a Joint regulation applicable to all of the Services:

AR 190-5; OPNAVINST 11200.5; MCO 5110.1; AFI 31-218(I)

Are eyewitnesses accurate?

March 19, 2009 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

tip: to Crime & Consequences, who gives a Hat tip to Howard Bashman at How Appealing for his post reporting on an audio segment on NPR's "Day to Day"

discussing the reliability of eyewitness identification in criminal

trials. The segment, from Slate.com writer Dahlia Lithwick, dicusses

Double jeopardy and collateral estoppel

March 19, 2009 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

Yeager v. United States will be argued Monday at the Supreme Court.

Under the doctrine of collateral estoppel, a prior court’s decision on

an issue necessary to its judgment can preclude relitigation of that

MRI as a lie detector

March 19, 2009 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

There's an interesting case going on in (southern California of course) where the defense is seeking to offer.

Defense attorneys are for the first time submitting a controversial neurological lie-detection test as evidence in U.S. court.digg_url ="http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/03/noliemri.html";

In an upcoming juvenile-sex-abuse case in San Diego, the defense is

IAC in negotiations

March 19, 2009 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

United States v. Pitcher, 05-3182r, 2009 U.S. App. LEXIS 5103 (2d Cir. March 11, 2009). In this case appellant claimed IAC. He claimed on direct appeal that he wouldn't have plead not guilty, but for the overly rosy picture of his chances of success painted by his trial defense counsel. He lost. So he took a habeas petition and succeeded in having the district court vacate the findings and sentence based on IAC. Pitcher v. United States, 371 F. Supp. 2d 246

(E.D.N.Y. 2005).

I may have read too much into the case, but there is an underlying theme that defense counsel may have a duty to strong arm an 'obviously guilty' client into a pretrial agreement. There were issues raised in the collateral attack about the procedures under 28 U.S.C.S. § 2255, which aren't relevant for our story. The points for trial defense counsel are the client who lies, giving a proper assessment of the client's chances based on the facts available, and it's improper to arm-twist a client into accepting a pretrial agreement.