ALL POSTS MADE PRIOR TO 5/1/2020, WHILE LISTING “CAAFlog 1.0” AS AUTHOR, WERE MADE BY PRIOR EDITORS OF CAAFLOG. The name is incorrect because the old site was obtained using a “Wayback Machine” download, and the old data had to be re-posted under an existing author. With over 5,000 posts, no attempt will be made to correct author names ..read more

President Trump entered office in January of this year with 103 federal judicial vacancies to fill. As of the writing of this article, there are now 143 vacancies, with 48 nominees pending before the Senate. An article published a couple of days ago in Foreign Policy by two faculty members of the United States Military Academy, Lieutenant Colonel Shane Reeves, and Major Ronald Alcala, offers “a modest proposal” to attack the backlog: appoint retired military judges to the federal bench. The article notes that, among federal adjudicators, military judges are “frequently overlooked and unde ..read more

In an unpublished per curiam decision in United States v. Conway, No. 20120708 (A. Ct. Crim. App. Nov. 21, 2014) (link to slip op.), a three judge panel of the Army CCA affirms the appellant’s pleas of guilty to larceny from a bank premised on his unauthorized use of another soldier’s debit card. In doing so, the CCA rejects the appellant’s argument “that the larcenies at issue were obtaining-type larcenies of retail goods of a merchant by false pretenses,” rather than larcenies of property from the bank. Slip op. at 3. Notably absent is an assertion that the vict ..read more

In a recently published opinion, United States v. Hoffmann, No. 201400067 (11 Dec 2014), the NMCCA held that allegations of child enticement offenses coupled with a law enforcement officer’s training and experience could establish probable cause for a search authorization of a suspect’s computer for child pornography. The appellant was convicted, contrary to his pleas, of one specification each of attempted sodomy with a child, indecent liberties with a child, child enticement, and possession of child pornography, in violation of Articles 80, 120, and 134, UCMJ. The appellant is alleged t ..read more

In this post from September, I analyzed the unpublished en banc opinion in United States v. Soto, No. 38422 (A.F. Ct. Crim. App. Sep. 16, 2014), that reversed a conviction for forcible rape in violation of Article 120(a) (2006) on the basis that the Government failed to satisfy its burden to demonstrate that the appellant used physical force to cause the sexual intercourse. Last Friday the Air Force certified the case to CAAF: No. 15-0247/AF. U.S. v. Eddy C. Soto. CCA 38422. Notice is hereby given that a certificate for review of the decision of the United States Air ..read more

Happy 2015 to all our CAAFlog readers out there! Like our number five story, the number four story on our list is also related to stories that made the top ten in previous years. In 2012, the “Heritage Brief” was part of the number one story and a PME for summer intern law students by a military judge at MCRD Parris Island was part of the number eight story. This year we saw the epilogues to those stories. The content and events related to the Commandant of the Marine Corps’s Heritage Brief are well known to readers of this blog, so I won’t re-hash all of it. However, this year we saw dec ..read more

Of the six service members on the military’s death row (Gray, Loving, Akbar, Witt, Hennis, and Hasan), Senior Airman Andrew Witt has the fourth oldest sentence. In 2005 a general court-martial composed of twelve officer members convicted Witt of the premeditated murder of a fellow Airman and his wife, and of the attempted murder of another Airman, and sentenced him to death. About 18 months later the prosecution team published a detailed first-person account of the trial proceedings in the Air Force JAG Corps magazine, The Reporter (available here). In 2013 Witt’s deat ..read more

CAAF will hear oral argument in the Army case of United States v. Adams, 14-0495/AR (CAAFlog case page), on Wednesday, January 14, 2015. The court will review the application of the corroboration rule, with the following issue: Whether the Army Court of Criminal Appeals erred in finding that the military judge did not abuse his discretion in admitting the portion of Appellant’s sworn statement regarding the [theft] of cocaine because the Government failed to corroborate, in accordance with Military Rule of Evidence 304(g), the essential fact that appellant took c ..read more

CAAF decided the Marine Corps case of United States v. Gilbreath, 74 M.J. 11, No. 14-0322/MC (CAAFlog case page) (link to slip op.), on Thursday, December 18, 2014. The court finds that the protections of Article 31(b) apply to members of the Individual Ready Reserve and that a rights warning was required under the facts of this case, reversing the decision of the Navy-Marine Corps CCA and the appellant’s conviction of larceny of a pistol. Chief Judge Baker writes for a unanimous court. CAAF reviewed two issues in this case (the first granted, the second specified by t ..read more

Our #2 story is really a continuation of our #1 story last year, and the media and congressional obsession with military sexual assault cases.  This year we saw continued attempts at tinkering with the military justice system to address issues, both perceived and real, with sexual assault in the military.  See here (debate on earlier Sen. McCaskill and Sen. Gillibrand bills), here (Sen. Gillibrand’s recent push to remove commander authority over certain offenses, including sexual assault), and here (changes in MilJus in the FY15 NDAA). In related news, the Report of the Res ..read more