Court-Martial Trial Practice Blog

Most recent Manual changes

May 21, 2013 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

Here is the FR.

Sexual assault legislation

May 21, 2013 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

Megan Scully at Roll Call.

At last count, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said he had reviewed 10 separate bills addressing the problem of sexual assault in the military’s ranks. Here is a rundown of some of the legislation lawmakers are pushing on Capitol Hill:

Enforcing Brady?

May 19, 2013 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

Here is a piece about a former Texas prosecutor who has been arrested and is being prosecuted for Brady violations.

More on Brady

May 19, 2013 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

The New York Times Sunday Review has an interesting piece about Brady, and the new practices being followed in North Carolina and Ohio to put in place a robust open file policy.

Ask the members

May 18, 2013 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

Judges confronted with allegations of racial or ethnic bias among jurors are allowed to investigate the claims, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals ruled yesterday. The opinion created a new exception to case law historically barring judges from questioning jurors about their process.

h/t The Blog of Legal Times.

Kittle v. United States, quotable quotes.

Worth the read

April 19, 2013 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

“That’s the Guy!”: Federal Rule of Evidence 801(d)(1)(C) and Out-of-Court Statements of Identification

Found in 34 CARDOZO L. REV. 1539

Reasonable expectations

April 16, 2013 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

Here is an interesting opinion from the Sixth about the reasonable expectation of privacy in items transmitted or available through Limewire (or similar P2P programs). There is none, compared to other ways stuff gets onto a computer – in the Sixth.

Defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in his computer from police accessing it via Limewire when he was hooked up to the Internet. He did not create an expectation of privacy from his efforts to hide files on his computer. Warshak has no application to this situation. United States v. Conner, 2013 U.S. App. LEXIS 7437, 2013 FED App. 0365N (6th Cir. April 11, 2013)[.]

The court references United States v. Warshak, 631 F.3d 266 (6th Cir. 2010).

No probation? Why not?

April 12, 2013 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

Well, the military has a sort of probation, but it’s not well formalized. Suspending a sentence is a form of unsupervised probation. Maybe some more detailed supervision would be appropriate. No reason a commander can’t do that already – conditions on suspending punishment. Also, the Services – well the Air Force and Army used to have a fairly vibrant return to duty program. Whether these programs will be available is a different question in today’s drawdown environment.

Army JA MAJ Evan R. Seamone is something of a leader in writing about actions for military personnel suffering combat related PTSD and TBI. So this piece is not unexpected.

If the civilian justice system has embraced treatment courts that care for veterans stricken with combat stress and brain injuries instead of punishing them, why can’t the military justice system? It can and it should, asserted Maj. Evan Seamone, the chief of military justice at Fort Benning, Ga., in an article published in the most recent issue of the journal Military Law Review.