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Tuesday, February 05, 2008
New CAAF decision
United States v. Townsend, __ M.J. ___, No. 07-0229/NA (C.A.A.F. Feb. 5, 2008). Judge Erdmann writing for a 4-0-1 court, affirming ruling that the military judge did not err by failing to bounce a member for implied bias. More in a follow-on post.
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3 comments:
See Czarnezki, Jason J., "The Dubitante Opinion" . Akron Law Review, Vol. 39, 2006.
1) Some may disagree, but this opinion puts a whole new gloss on implied bias. And, by "whole new gloss," I mean that the legal concept has a lost some teeth. Let me get this straight: member takes law classes b/c he wants to be a prosecutor, dislikes/disrespects at least some of the defense community (apparently no similar disdain for any of the prosecution community), dad is a law enforcement guy (he loves his dad), and he is at least somewhat inclined to believe law enforcement more than regular folks. Oh, and he "wants to put the bad guys in jail." Yeah, clearly no problem with implied bias.
2) Do I hear a WTF with J. Baker's opinion? Easy call at trial level but difficult on appeal as a matter of law? This conclusion is worthless without letting us know how the standard of review (low of the low level of deference under abuse of discretion) gets you there.
Quite frankly that type of potential juror is consistently present in the civilian sector. CAAF continues to allign themselves with federal appellate courts so why is that a problem? Heaven forbid there should be a juror who is educated and thinks that people who comit crimes should be punished.
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