U.S. v. Ronghi, 60 M.J. 83

Trial Stages: Sentence and Punishment: Lawfulness of Sentence

1. Congress passed a bill authorizing the court-martial punishment of confinement for life without eligibility for parole (LWOP) on November 6, 1997; the President signed that bill into law on November 18, 1997; however, the President did not amend the MCM to incorporate LWOP until April 11, 2002, thus creating an issue whether LWOP was an authorized court-martial punishment for the crime of premeditated murder during the period between enactment of the LWOP statute and the MCM’s revision; we conclude that the statute creating LWOP authorized that punishment for premeditated murder offenses committed after November 18, 1997
2. it is well established that, absent a clear direction by Congress to the contrary, a law takes effect on the date of its enactment; an examination of the applicable statutes reveals that Congress authorized LWOP as a sentence for any premeditated murder committed from the day after its enactment forward
3. Article 56a(a), UCMJ, provides that for any offense for which a sentence of confinement for life may be adjudged, a court-martial may adjudge a sentence of confinement for LWOP; the statute that added this language to the UCMJ also provided that Article 56a shall be applicable only with respect to an offense committed after the date of the enactment of this Act; that date of enactment was November 18, 1997, when the President signed it into law
4. when Congress adopted Article 118, it provided only two authorized sentences for the offenses of premeditated murder and felony murder: death or imprisonment for life; when it adopted Article 56a, Congress plainly intended to authorize LWOP as a third available sentence for a premeditated murder that occurred after November 18, 1997; thus, absent some other statutory provision limiting LWOP’s availability, it was an authorized sentence when appellant committed his offenses on January 13, 2000
5. for most of the UCMJ’s punitive articles, the President plays a role in determining the maximum authorized punishment; Article 56 provides that the punishment which a court-martial may direct for an offense may not exceed such limits as the President may prescribe for that offense; Article 18 similarly authorizes the President to prescribe limitations on the punishments adjudged by general courts-martial; the Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of this general delegation of Congress’s authority to define criminal punishments for military offenses; the President has executed this delegated authority by establishing maximum punishments in Part IV of the MCM
6. the 2000 edition of the MCM, which governed appellant’s case, provided that the maximum punishment for premeditated murder was death; the MCM provision noted that the mandatory minimum punishment for premeditated murder was imprisonment for life; because LWOP is a lesser punishment than the maximum (death), the MCM’s maximum sentence provision did not conflict with the congressionally-authorized sentence of LWOP in a premeditated murder case
7. the 2002 executive order that amended the MCM to incorporate LWOP indicated that the punishment shall only apply to offenses committed after November 18, 1997; thus, the executive order itself recognized LWOP’s availability as an authorized sentence at the time of appellant’s offenses
8. another presidential limitation on court-martial sentencing authority is RCM 1003, which provides an exclusive list of the kinds of punishments that a court-martial may impose; the 2000 MCM’s version of RCM 1003 did not specifically mention LWOP; rather, the 2000 MCM’s version of RCM 1003, like its predecessors, authorized confinement as a form of punishment without addressing the term of confinement at all; but RCM 1003 nevertheless allowed LWOP, because it is not a new form of punishment, but simply a longer term of confinement than military law had previously allowed a court-martial to adjudge; we conclude that confinement for LWOP falls within the meaning of RCM 1003(b)(7)’s term confinement

Miscellaneous Matters: Statutes, Treaties, Regulations, Executive Orders, Directives, etc.: Generally

1. it is well established that, absent a clear direction by Congress to the contrary, a law takes effect on the date of its enactment