The legislation introduced Wednesday combines Gillibrand’s bill with the I Am Vanessa Guillen Act, a House bill that would change the reporting process for sexual harassment and assault in the military and allow service members who are victims to seek monetary damages from the Defense Department.

Cheers, Phil Cave

2d Circuit, U.S. Court of Appeals

So, assume that a defendant with PTSD is charged with various child pornography charges and raises an insanity defense. Would it violate Rule 704(b) if a forensic psychiatrist answered the following question: "And a person suffering from Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, can that, in your opinion to a reasonable degree of psychiatric certainty, can that affect an individual's ability to appreciate that his conduct is wrong?"

Western District of Virginia

The Secretary of Defense shall establish a panel to conduct independent periodic reviews and assessments of the operation of this chapter. The panel shall be known as the “Military Justice Review Panel” (int this section referred to as the “Panel”).

​Code Committee
Article 146 of the UCMJ historically established a committee to meet annually for the purpose of making an annual survey of the operation of the UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice.) The Committee was composed of the judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, the Judge Advocate General of the Army, the Judge Advocate General of the Navy, the Judge Advocate General of the Air Force, the Judge Advocate General of the Coast Guard, the Staff Judge Advocate to the Commandant of the Marine Corps, and two members of the public appointed by the Secretary of Defense. The meetings were open to the public. Notice of the meetings was published in the Federal Register and on this webpage. The Annual Reports of the Committee were published in West's Military Justice Reporter. The historic reports are available on the Court's website.
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Article 146 was modified by the Military Justice Act of 2016,1 creating a new Military Justice Review Panel established by the Secretary of Defense. The Court's limited interface with the new panel, as found in the statute, is that the Secretary of Defense is to consider any recommendation made by the Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces for the nonspecified remaining members of the panel. The Court's historic role on the former Code Committee and in compiling the annual report was replaced by a separate reporting requirement for the Court. See Article 146a(a) (prescribing an annual report from the Court

suffered cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment and Article 55, UCMJ, 10 U.S.C. § 855, when he was not given proper medical treatment while in confinement. Alternatively, Appellant contends that the conditions of his post-trial confinement render his sentence inappropriately severe, warranting relief under Article 66(c), UCMJ, 10 U.S.C. § 866(c).

[I]nclude[s] the "record of trial" and "allied papers." Under the Rules for Courts-Martial (R.C.M.) applicable to this case, the "record of trial" contains all of the items listed in R.C.M. 1103(b)(2), and the "allied papers" are items now identified as "matters attached to the record" in accordance with R.C.M. 1103(b)(3). In addition, the "entire record" also includes briefs and arguments that government and defense counsel (and the appellant personally) might present regarding matters in the record of trial and "allied papers."

Cheers, Phil Cave.

The appellant and A1C E, who were co-workers, socialized together on the evening of 16 November 2001. They visited a friend in the hospital who had just given birth to a baby. Thereafter they stopped to buy dinner and some alcoholic beverages. They returned to A1C E dormitory room where they began drinking and watching movies. By late evening, A1C E became very intoxicated, to the point that he vomited and soon thereafter fell asleep. The appellant and another airman4 helped A1C E get into bed. While A1C E lay on the bed, the appellant placed his hands around A1C E neck and put a pillow over his face. Once dead, the appellant cut A1C E wrist with a knife. Before leaving A1C E room that night, the appellant took the victim’s TV, DVD player, VCR, DVDs, videos, and CDs.

Cheers, Phil Cave

Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals

​Appellant acknowledges that the new Articles 60a and 60b, UCMJ, and the Rules for Courts-Martial that went into effect before the charges in Appellant’s case were referred for trial no longer require written advice from the SJA to the convening authority regarding action, only that the convening authority consult with the SJA before taking action. See 10 U.S.C. §§ 860a, 860b; R.C.M. 1109(d)(2); Executive Order 13,825, § 2, 83 Fed. Reg. 9889 (8 Mar. 2018). However, in Appellant’s view, therein lies the heart of the problem; he asserts that without a written SJA recommendation, this court can have no confidence the convening authority received complete and accurate advice. Appellant contends this concern is particularly acute in a case such as this where, he asserts, the trial counsel’s substantial assistance memorandum expanded the convening authority’s power to grant clemency to include the ability to modify his bad conduct discharge. Appellant further argues that under the rules in effect prior to 1 January 2019, the substantial assistance memorandum would have been attached to the SJAR or to an addendum to it, and thus would have been provided to the Defense.

Navy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals

Not a likely appellate case anymore

Worth the read

In many cases, appellate courts also invoke the concept of reasonableness without explaining it, but in some cases, they have tried to give meaning to “reasonableness,” the law’s most ubiquitous concept. Four different approaches can be identified, three of which employ what generously can be called an analysis, and a fourth, if it can be called an approach at all, that seems to lack any analysis. This article will consider each of these four approaches in three contexts in the hope that the resulting twelve sections will promote some understanding of what courts are not just saying, but actually doing in cases where “reasonableness” is the applicable standard.
. . . 
​Moving from colloquial speech to court interpretations, I start by briefly identifying the four approaches that some courts take with respect to the concept of “reasonableness”: (I) viewing reasonableness as a continuum, (II) balancing or weighing interests and effects, with a balance in favor of positive interests or effects considered reasonable and a balance in favor of negative interests or effects considered unreasonable, (III) articulating a standard, factor, or factors relevant to determining reasonableness and providing some guidance as to how that standard or those factors are to be applied, and (IV) determining reasonableness without identifying any method of analysis or any standard or factor.

Brenner Fissell

EIC

Brenner Fissell

EIC

​GAO also found, through analyses of the legal training offered and from discussion groups and interviews with commanders and legal support staff, that perspectives varied on the general preparedness of commanders to address legal issues. In addition, GAO found that the timing, amount, and mix of legal training provided to commanders may not be meeting their needs.\\
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