Court-Martial Trial Practice Blog

Recent A.F.C.C.A. opinions

February 10, 2009 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

Yesterday (090209) A.F.C.C.A. updated its online opinions. There are three worth reading for the trial practitioner.

United States v. Curran, ACM 37185 (A.F. Ct. Crim. App. 22 January 2009). This is an interesting issue where the prosecution was allowed to introduce evidence on sentencing about the time and effort involved to investigate the allegations against the accused. The court terms this "Unit Impact Sentencing Evidence," and of course agree it is admissible. The hasten to add that even if error, the error was nonprejudicial because the defense counsel did a great job of minimizing the impact of the testimony. Before you know it we'll be punishing accuseds for exercising their constitutional rights — See United States v. Stephens, 66 M.J. 520 (A.F. Ct. Crim. App. 2008).

United States v. Camnetar, ACM 36448, 2009 LEXIS 40 (A.F. Ct. Crim. App. 30 January 2009). The two issues of interest are a suppression motion of CP found on a DVD as well as computer, and whether the defense counsel failed to adequately investigate an alibi. On the suppression, there is an interesting point about the reliability of the "informant." This is not a true informant case. And of course, even if there is error, the "good faith exception" cures all.

More in the Orwellian Manor.

February 10, 2009 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

Andrew Gilmore, Mexico publishes law establishing database of mobile phone users, Paper Chase, JURIST, 10 February 2009.

Helpful plug-in — technology tip for today.

February 10, 2009 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

Do you have quite a few websites you browse every day, or every week? Then you should consider installing the Morning Coffee plug-in to your Firefox browser.

If you are like me and look at all of the court's websites everyday, as well as other law related sites, it can take time just to click and open, even if you have them on your bookmarks. With one click Morning Coffee will open all the websites for you. You can do something else like check email, or go get your morning coffee, or in my case (hot) tea, and come back to read your favorite websites.

You can retrieve the plug-in, as well as other useful plug-ins, from Mozilla. Get Morning Coffee here.

Child pornography — again

February 9, 2009 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

CAAFLog has noted that NMCCA has scheduled oral argument in United States v. Craig, No. NMCCA 200800716

The two issues are:

I. WHETHER THE APPELLANT’S GUILTY PLEA TO DISTRIBUTION OF CHILD PORNOGRAPHY WAS IMPROVIDENT, AS THERE WAS NO EVIDENCE THAT APPELLANT DELIVERED ANY UNLAWFUL IMAGES TO ANYONE?

A.F.C.C.A.

February 9, 2009 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

The Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals updated their opinions today. Several may have value for discussion, more later.

Metadata and emails.

February 9, 2009 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

Earlier I posted an item on how to interpret email headers.

Here is an interesting article about the email headers — metadata.

Tresa Baldas, Metadata Grows in Legal Import, The National L. J., 26 January 2009.

More on technology.

February 9, 2009 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

I wanted to follow-up on some thoughts regarding my "office-in-a-briefcase" (which many of you know is literally true for me).

You can find suitable scanners, color printers, and of course computers, which can fit within one briefcase. All you need at that point is access to the internet. Internet access in this day and age is pretty easy, even overseas, and even on military bases. The current DoD policy on thumb-drives adds some wrinkles when you need to print out documents on-base, but that's why you have email.

Today the issue is faxes. With the advent of email, Adobe.pdf software, and similar programs, the transfer of documents is easier and generally cheaper than mail and fax. But there is still a call for you to have a way for a person to fax documents. The benefit of an email based fax "machine" is that you can receive and send faxes while traveling, so long as you can get an internet connection.

Rules of evidence or political expediency?

February 9, 2009 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

Colin Miller, Into The Dawn To Montana: Montana Moves Closer To Adopting Sex Crime Character Evidence Rules, 9 February 2009.

A reminder that rules of evidence are in many instances political responses, not reality.

Rights Advice

February 9, 2009 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

It occurs to me that most suspects interrogated by NCIS, CID, OSI, CGIS, have never seen the "rights' form they have you sign. So if you've not seen it in advance, it's harder to know what it is and how to complete it.

Here is an example, and it is pretty uniform across the Services although the example is Army.

Read it now, see where the check marks are, and exercise those rights.

Reservists on a court-martial panel?

February 9, 2009 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

As a result of the current National Guard and Reserve activations I, like many of my colleagues, find ourselves representing Guard or Reserve clients at court-martial. From time to time they ask if they can have Guard or Reservists on their Members Panel (jury). The answer is no they can't require Guard or Reserve panel members, unlike in administrative discharge boards.

Here though is an interesting challenge to the Canadian system of Panel Member selection.

CBC News, Lawyer challenges jury selection at N.S. soldier's court martial, 6 February 2009.