U.S. v. Dinger, 77 M.J. 447

Trial Stages: Sentence and Punishment: Lawfulness of Sentence

1. a court-martial is not prohibited by 10 USC § 6332 (2012) from adjudging a punitive discharge or any other available punishment established by the President in the case of a retiree, and, to the extent US v. Allen, 33 MJ 209 (CMA 1991) and US v. Sloan, 35 MJ 4 (CMA 1992), suggest otherwise, they are overruled; the plain language of the statute does not purport in any way to limit the authority of a court-martial to impose any authorized sentence; the UCMJ is a self-contained statute that both defines criminal offenses and promulgates the procedures by which those offenses are to be prosecuted and adjudicated; in it, Congress specifically provided for the court-martial of retired members of a regular component of the armed forces who are entitled to pay; Congress also established mandatory sentences for some offenses, minimum punishments for others, and authorized the President to set the maximum punishments for the remainder; in the MCM, the President has not limited the punishments that may be adjudged against retirees; had Congress intended to restrict the court-martial sentences adjudged in retiree cases, and particularly to abandon the principle of uniformity of treatment so essential to the UCMJ, one would expect it to have done so explicitly in the UCMJ, not in some other statutory provision with no reference to its applicability to courts-martial; Congress has not done so

Trial Stages: Appeals: Scope of Review

1. although a court-martial is not prohibited from sentencing a retiree to a punitive discharge or any other authorized punishment, the collateral effect of such a sentence on a retiree is a different question that is not within the scope of our review; Congress saw fit to give jurisdiction over pay claims and related matters to other federal courts, and it is to them that such questions should be directed

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

1. whether, as a result of a court-martial conviction, appellant is subject to a punitive discharge is a question of law that an appellate court reviews de novo

Trial Stages: Appeals: Waiver

1. although an accused may waive many of the most fundamental constitutional rights, he does not by a nonconditional guilty plea waive his right to appeal a sentence that is unlawful because it exceeds the statutory maximum, even where his pretrial agreement authorized the convening authority to approve such a sentence and he agreed to plead guilty despite the military judge’s erroneous ruling on the maximum punishment

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

1. one canon of statutory interpretation provides that if there is a conflict between a general provision and a specific provision, the specific provision prevails

Miscellaneous Matters: Judicial Review: Stare Decisis

1. when an appellate court is asked to overrule one of its precedents, it analyzes the matter under the doctrine of stare decisis
2. stare decisis is a principle of decision-making, under which a court follows earlier judicial decisions when the same issue arises in other cases; although the doctrine of stare decisis is of fundamental importance to the rule of law, a court’s precedents are not sacrosanct, and prior decisions may be overruled where the necessity and propriety of doing so has been established
3. in evaluating the application of stare decisis, an appellate court considers whether the prior decision is unworkable or poorly reasoned, any intervening events, the reasonable expectations of servicemembers, and the risk of undermining public confidence in the law