Another Broken Record—The Year in Court-Martial Personnel, Voir Dire and Challenges, and Pleas and Pretrial Agreements

摘要

This past term, the CAAF and the service courts issued several decisions in the areas of court-martial personnel, voir dire and challenges, and pleas and pretrial agreements. The courts focused on several potential "record-breaking" issues existing in court-martial transcripts. In the area of court-martial personnel, the CAAF's most important decision limited a trial judge's ability to craft a sentence based on collateral matters. One of the CAAF's most groundbreaking decisions this year came in the area of voir dire—the ruling that a military judge may only liberally grant challenges for cause for the defense. Ironically, the President, by executive order, may have created an even more revolutionary voir dire change by amending RCM 912(f)(4), the "But For Rule." How these two changes will coexist and affect new cases and further appellate review remains to be seen. Last term's cases involving providence inquiry issues, such as advising the accused of the elements of the offense and obtaining a factual predicate for the offense from the accused on the record, continue to reaffirm the "CAAF and the service courts' generally paternalistic approach to the military courts-martial process, as compared to civilian practice." This article provides trial practitioners with trends and practical implications from the 2005 term of court so that their records of trial will survive appellate scrutiny.