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The Air Force has published their court-martial results for December 2016.They reported 19 courts-martial service-wide. 17 were reported as convictions and 2 as acquittals (10%). That is a number desperate for context.This firm is interested in cases where a military jury/panel finds the accused not guilty. There were 4 pretrial agreements. (21%). That’s positive news for...

The Army Times is reporting on a new provision of the National Defense Authorization Act that encourages the Discharge Review Boards to liberally consider upgrade applications of service members separated for misconduct related to sexual assault or harassment. The intent is to bring the same standards to victims as we have in post-traumatic stress cases. The law even...

I was recently at Fort Carson, Colorado. I came across a flyer from the Department of Justice titled “False Allegations of Adult Crimes Reference Guide.” The flyer has prompted me to write about false allegations and deception. This Part I will provide the data from the Department of Justice. The data apparently came from the...

In Part I of this blog series, I posted some data from the Department of Justice on false allegations. In Part II, I’ll discuss the literature on detecting lies. In Part III, we talk about nonverbal deception and facial expressions. In Part IV, I’ll talk about false confessions. I’ve spent the better part of the past decade studying...

We occasionally get asked whether military members can revoke a consent to search. The answer is yes. The sooner you revoke the consent to search the better.In a case last year, a service member had a conviction reversed because he revoked consent to search.The court gave a very nice summary of the scope of consent....

CONTACT US! Digital forensic evidence is increasingly becoming a part of the military criminal defense. The use of digital evidence is now present in nearly every case that we are involved in. It is also one area where potential clients may have the most questions.In the military, when you are first suspected of a crime...

Over the next few months, we’ll be in court defending three sexual assault cases involving the incapacitation of an alleged sexual assault victim. The military typically charges cases where the alleged victim is under the influence of drugs or alcohol as a sexual assault – rather than forcible rape.For some time, we noticed a trend...

This week we learned that Mr. Pristera successfully represented an Air Force NCO facing suspension of her security clearance for financial considerations. An anonymous tip was sent to the Central Clearing Facility (CCF) alleging that the SM was living outside of her means. The SM was previously the victim of predatorial lending practices and illegal mishandling of mortgage...

The latest court-martial results for the Navy are for November 2016.Even though every case is unique, once again the numbers seem to support choosing a jury over a guilty plea or judge.The Navy held 21 courts-martial in November 2016. This blog has previously reported that the Navy dealt out about 75% of their cases in...

We occasionally receive questions about whether communications between a husband and wife are admissible in a court-martial.The basic rule is in Military Rule of Evidence 504. The rule basically provides that a person has a privilege to refuse to testify against his or her spouse during and after the marriage about communications while they were...