On July 8, 2013, The Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces (CAAF) held in U.S. v. Porter that a servicemember’s drug testing report showing positives for both marijuana and cocaine should have been deemed inadmissible at trial under the Confrontation Clause of the Constitution.  The reason the admission of the drug testing report was … Read more

A case that is currently being appealed to The Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces (CAAF) has caught my attention.  The case is U.S. v. Thomas and involves an officer who faced court-martial charges that alleged violations of Article 134.  The court-martial charges were defectively written because they did not allege in the writing … Read more

On June 24, 2013 the Army Court of Criminal Appeals in U.S. v. St. John determined that a servicemember’s plea in a court-martial to both indecent liberties with a child and indecent exposure for the same incident was duplicative.  It is often difficult to understand Congress’ full intent with regards to Article 120 of the … Read more

According to the Army Times, “brain scans of veterans with symptoms of Gulf War illness show neurological differences between those who deployed to the region in 1990 and 1991 and a control group.”  Some veterans of the Gulf War have complained of having many different symptoms following their deployment.  These symptoms include, fatigue, memory loss, … Read more

On 21 June 2013, in United States v. Eller, the Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals denied a government appeal of a military judge’s decision to grant a challenge for cause based on a court-martial panel member’s knowledge of President Obama’s influential comments about sexual assault as well as her opinion about whether verbal consent … Read more

On May 7, 2013, President Obama stated, “[t]he bottom line is: I have no tolerance for this…I expect consequences…So I don’t just want more speeches or awareness programs or training, but ultimately folks look the other way.  If we find out somebody’s engaging in this, they’ve got to be held accountable — prosecuted, stripped of … Read more

According to the Stars and Stripes, Navy Judge Commander Marcus Fulton recently ruled during two pretrial hearings in court martials, U.S. v. Johnson and U.S. v. Fuentes, that President Obama’s public comments in May 2013 would unduly influence panel members and/or military judge sitting on the court-martials to discharge the Sailors accused of sexual assault.  … Read more

Temporary Early Retirement Authority (TERA) is now available in all services.  The Army just implemented TERA last week on 10 June 2013.  TERA is designed to allow those servicemembers with over 15 years of service, being denied continued service based on the centralized board process, to retire early instead of receiving an involuntary separation.  The … Read more

If you were separated or retired because of a disability, you may be under the impression that you are stuck with the rating percentage that you were given.  This is not necessarily true.  In fact, two different boards have been specifically set up to review disability ratings.  In 2009, the Physical Disability Board of Review … Read more

In March I posted a blog talking about how sexual assault in the military is all over the news these days.  Well, this continues to be true as top military leaders resist proposals by some Senators that sexual assaults should no longer be handled by the military chain of command.  One of the bills introduced … Read more