U.S. v. Doss, 57 M.J. 182

Trial Stages: Appeals: Remedies › Rehearing

1. if the court cannot reliably determine what sentence would have been imposed at the trial level if the error had not occurred, then a sentence rehearing is required

Trial Stages: Appeals: Remedies › Sentence reassessment

1. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces will overturn the lower court’s sentence reassessment only to prevent obvious miscarriages of justice or abuses of discretion
2. a Court of Criminal Appeals may properly reassess a sentence if the court can determine that, absent the error, the sentence would have been at least of a certain magnitude, then it may cure the error by reassessing the sentence instead of ordering a sentence rehearing; a sentence of that magnitude or less will be free of the prejudicial effects of error
3. if the error at trial was of constitutional magnitude, then the court must be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that its sentence reassessment cured the error
4. in a situation in which the inadequacy of counsel has resulted in the omission of evidence that, under the standards of Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984), could have made a difference in the sentence imposed if it had been made a matter of record, the Court of Criminal Appeals cannot reassess the sentence accurately because the record is not complete
5. defense counsel’s ineffective representation during sentencing made it impossible to reliably reassess the sentence, because: (1) 19 pages of medical documentation submitted to the convening may be only the tip of the iceberg; (2) the significance of those 19 pages cannot be fully appreciated without expert testimony; and (3) it is impossible to determine what evidence a competent defense counsel would have presented
6. the Court of Criminal Appeals abused its discretion by reassessing the sentence instead of ordering a rehearing because it was impossible to determine what evidence would have been presented by competent counsel; thus, civilian defense counsel’s omissions could not be rendered harmless beyond a reasonable doubt by sentence reassessment

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

1. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces will overturn the lower court’s sentence reassessment only to prevent obvious miscarriages of justice or abuses of discretion