U.S. v. Bartlett, 66 M.J. 426

Military Justice Personnel: Court Members: Eligibility/Selection

1. the Secretary of the Army impermissibly contravened the provisions of Article 25(d)(2), UCMJ, 10 USC § 825(d)(2), which requires a convening authority to select court-martial members best qualified for duty based upon age, education, training, experience, length of service, and judicial temperament, by issuing a regulation that exempted from court-martial service officers of the Medical Corps, Medical Specialist Corps, Army Nurse Corps, Dental Corps, Chaplain Corps, Veterinary Corps, and those detailed to Inspector General duties

Core Criminal Law Subjects: Burdens, Standards, Presumptions, Inferences: Appellate Presumptions, Inferences

1. there is a strong presumption that an error is not structural

Trial Stages: Merits: Trial Procedures › Generally

1. in Article 36, UCMJ, 10 USC § 836, Congress has delegated to the President the authority to prescribe by regulation procedures for the trial of courts-martial, insofar as such regulations are not inconsistent with the UCMJ; such regulations are also to be uniform insofar as practicable

Trial Stages: Appeals: Harmless / Prejudicial Error

1. error in exempting certain classes of officers from court-martial service pursuant to an Army regulation was harmless in a case where appellant pleaded guilty and the court-martial panel only considered the sentence, where (1) there was no evidence that the Secretary of the Army enacted the regulation with an improper motive; (2) there was no evidence that the convening authority’s motivation in detailing the members he assigned to appellant’s court-martial was anything but benign -- the desire to comply with a facially valid Army regulation; (3) the convening authority who referred appellant’s case to trial was a person authorized to convene a general court-martial; (4) appellant was sentenced by court members personally chosen by the convening authority from a pool of eligible officers; (5) the court members all met the criteria in Article 25, UCMJ; and, (6) as the military judge found, the panel was well-balanced across gender, racial, staff, command, and branch lines

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

1. an appellate court reviews claims of error in the selection of members of courts-martial de novo as questions of law
2. there is a strong presumption that an error is not structural
3. in deciding issues of improper court member selection, an appellate court employs a case-specific rather than a structural-error analysis
4. the burden of demonstrating prejudice, or the lack thereof, from nonconstitutional error in the detailing of court members depends on the manner in which the error occurred; in those cases where an appellate court concludes that the error resulted from unlawful command influence -- attempts to affect the outcome of the trial through the selection of particular members – it will not affirm unless the government establishes beyond a reasonable doubt that the error was harmless; where a convening authority has intentionally included or excluded certain classes of individuals from membership, in an attempt to comply with the requirements of Article 25, UCMJ - such as exclusion of junior officers and enlisted members because senior officers possess better maturity and judgment – an appellate court will place the burden on the government to demonstrate lack of harm; on the other hand, when there is a simple administrative error, the burden in on appellant to show prejudice
5. where an error in exempting certain classes of officers from court-martial service was not a simple administrative mistake but mandated by an Army regulation, the government has the burden of showing the error was harmless

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

1. while statutes covering the same subject matter should be construed to harmonize them if possible, this does not empower courts to undercut the clearly expressed intent of Congress in enacting a particular statute
2. in cases of direct conflict, a specific statute overrides a general one, regardless of their dates of enactment