U.S. v. Wacha, 55 M.J. 266

Trial Stages: Appeals: Courts of Criminal Appeals › Sentence appropriateness

1. Courts of Criminal Appeals are required to engage in sentence comparison with specific cases when they perform their Article 66(c) sentence appropriateness review in those rare instances in which sentence appropriateness can be fairly determined only by reference to disparate sentences adjudged in closely related cases
2. there is no limitation on the Court of Criminal Appeals’ discretion to consider and compare other courts-martial sentences when that court is reviewing a case for sentence appropriateness and relative uniformity
3. Congress has vested responsibility for determining sentence appropriateness in the Courts of Criminal Appeals, and that responsibility includes but is not limited to considerations of uniformity and evenhandedness of sentencing decisions
4. assuming arguendo that Court of Criminal Appeals was unduly restrictive in performing its sentence appropriateness function by declaring that it could not consider and compare other court-martial sentences with that of this appellant unless the cases were closely related and the sentences were highly disparate, that court did not abuse its discretion in finding that appellant’s sentence was relatively uniform and appropriate; a fair reading of the lower court’s opinion is convincing that the judges went beyond a mere comparison to a co-actor’s sentence when determining that appellant’s sentence was both relatively uniform and appropriate

Trial Stages: Appeals: Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces

1. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces reviews, as a matter of law, whether the Court of Criminal Appeals abused its discretion or caused a miscarriage of justice in carrying out its highly discretionary sentence appropriateness role

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

1. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces reviews, as a matter of law, whether the Court of Criminal Appeals abused its discretion or caused a miscarriage of justice in carrying out its highly discretionary sentence appropriateness role