New Grant: Thompson--"Jencks" issue

3/4/2021

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"Order Granting Petition for Review

No. 21-0111/AR. U.S. v. Jesse M. Thompson. CCA 20180519. On consideration of the petition for grant of review of the decision of the United States Army Court of Criminal Appeals, it is ordered that said petition is granted on the following issue:

WHETHER APPELLANT IS ENTITLED TO RELIEF UNDER R.C.M. 914.

Briefs will be filed under Rule 25."

1 Comment

Scott

3/4/2021 07:25:49 pm

Here's a link to the opinion (hopefully - ACCA links have been difficult lately): https://www.jagcnet.army.mil/ACCALibrary/cases/opinion/file/legacy/341

Here's a link to the prior CAAFLOG post about the ACCA Opinion: https://www.caaflog.org/home/recent-acca-opinion-united-states-v-thompson

As I commented on that post, I'm not sure ACCA's conclusion that the timeline at issue is not a statement as defined by Jencks/914 is accurate. That said, the fact that the document in question was never in the possession of the government is really the operative issue for Jencks/914 purposes.

I think it is more an issue of due process as implicated by spoliation under the Trombetta / Youngblood line of cases - rather than a true 914 issue.

Most such cases are about the failure to preserve evidence, but the same standard has been applied to the failure to collect evidence.
See Miller v. Vasquez, 868 F.2d 1116, 1120 (9th Cir 1989) (“We hold that a bad faith failure to collect potentially exculpatory evidence would violate the due process clause”) (citing Youngblood).

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New Grant: Thompson--"Jencks" issue

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