U.S. v. Rockwood, 52 M.J. 98

Military Justice Personnel: Court Members: Challenges for Cause

1. military judge did not abuse his discretion in denying challenges for cause against all remaining court members where he based his ruling on his personal assessment of each member, and the totality of the circumstances indicated that each member was genuinely open to considering all mitigating and extenuating factors which were relevant to a just sentence before arriving at a fixed conclusion

Core Criminal Law Subjects: Defenses: Duress

1. duress is a defense to crime if the defendant was compelled or coerced to commit the crime by some human agency, prior to a safe avenue of escape being available, under a threat of serious imminent harm to the defendant or others, and the crime is of a lesser magnitude than the harm threatened; the duress must consist of threatening conduct which produced the following three elements in the accused: (1) a reasonable fear; (2) the fear must be of an immediate [imminent] harm; and, (3) that harm must be death or serious bodily harm
2. RCM 916(h) provides a defense of “coercion or duress” to any offense except killing of an innocent person when “the accused’s participation in the offense was caused by a reasonable apprehension that the accused or another innocent person would be immediately killed or would immediately suffer serious bodily injury if the accused did not commit the act”, unless the accused had a reasonable opportunity to avoid committing the crime without bringing about the threatened harm
3. military judge’s instruction, which blended elements of duress to the circumstances of appellant’s conduct and included elements of necessity, comported well with general civilian criminal law, and expressed an objective standard common to both duress and necessity

Core Criminal Law Subjects: Defenses: Justification

1. in the absence of any legal authority suggesting that appellant had a legal “duty” to abandon his post and strike out on his own to inspect a Haitian penitentiary, or to commit other offenses, the military judge did not err in declining to give a “justification” instruction which would provide a defense for a “death, injury, or other act caused or done in the proper performance of a legal duty.” See RCM 916(c)

Core Criminal Law Subjects: Defenses: Necessity

1. necessity is a “choice of evils” defense, brought about by the situation itself, where the belief that the action was necessary is reasonable, and there must have been no alternative that would have caused lesser harm
2. the Manual has no provision specifically establishing “necessity” as a defense, nor is there a standard instruction denominated “necessity”
3. military judge’s instruction, which blended elements of duress to the circumstances of appellant’s conduct and included elements of necessity, comported well with general civilian criminal law, and expressed an objective standard common to both duress and necessity

Core Criminal Law Subjects: Witnesses: Production of

1. a military judge’s decision on witness production is reviewed for abuse of discretion
2. military judge did not abuse his discretion in denying request to produce witness whose testimony was remote because that witness was allegedly to testify about matters in existence months after the relevant offenses
3. commander’s state of mind regarding his personal understanding of international law and the balance he sought to strike between force protection and suppressing violence were marginally relevant to whether conditions on the ground justified appellant’s conduct under international law; but mere assertions of the subject areas appellant wished to address with the potential witness did not satisfy requirement that proffers set forth what the witness is expected to say about those subjects
4. by failing to renew and clarify a request for witness, as the military judge specifically invited the defense to do, the defense failed to preserve issue of witness production for appellate review

Trial Stages: Appeals: Preservation of Error / Plain Error

1. by failing to renew and clarify a request for witness, as the military judge specifically invited the defense to do, the defense failed to preserve issue of witness production for appellate review

Trial Stages: Appeals: Standards of Review, Burdens, etc.

1. a military judge’s decision on witness production is reviewed for abuse of discretion
2. as a court without fact-finding authority, the standard of review for determining legal sufficiency of the evidence at the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces is whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt

Miscellaneous Matters: Command Influence: Generally

1. nothing in record supported claim that the convening authority or anyone within the organization that acted on appellant’s case should have been disqualified, felt humiliated, or felt threatened merely because of appellant’s criticism of command operations; and appellant’s criticism itself was not sufficient to show that trial was infected by unlawful command influence or conflict of interests that affected the fundamental fairness of the court-martial