Friday, April 04, 2008

CAAF denies Army GAD's reconsideration petition in Lopez de Victoria

On Wednesday, CAAF denied the government's reconsideration petition in United States v. Lopez de Victoria, 66 M.J. 67 (C.A.A.F. 2008). Filing a fruitless reconsideration petition is a military appellate government shop's traditional first step on the road to beseeching the SG to seek cert. By my calculations, a cert petition would be due on 1 July. If the SG is seriously contemplating filing a cert petition, he generally seeks an extension of the filing deadline. We will, of course, monitor the Supreme Court's web site for any signs of movement in Lopez de Victoria -- a case that seems far more certworthy than most.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Out of curiousity I noticed that there was an order to disbar Mr. Harvey J. Volzer. Is it the same Mr. Volzer that defended Sergeant Cardona and asked for General who-know-who to testify about using police dogs at Grab-An-Arab prison?

Here it is:

SPECIAL DOCKET MATTERS

No. 08-08. In the Matter of Harvey J. Volzer. It appearing that the above-named attorney is a member of the Bar of this Court, that he has been suspended indefinitely from the practice of law before the U.S. Army Court of Criminal Appeals by the Assistant Judge Advocate General of the Army, that on February 14, 2008, pursuant to Rule 15(b), Rules of Practice and Procedure, United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, said attorney was suspended from the practice of law before the Court and was directed to show cause by March 17, 2008, why he should not be disbarred, and that no matters have been provided by said attorney, and considering the serious nature of his misconduct, it is ordered that Harvey J. Volzer is hereby suspended indefinitely from the practice of law before this Court this date.

Does anyone got the scoop what this misconduct could be?

John O'Connor said...

He also represented Megan Ambuhl in the Abu Ghraib courts-martial.

I had some minor dealings with Harvey in the context of the Ambuhl court-martial, and he seemed like an affable guy. I have no idea what all of this is about.

John O'Connor said...

OH, and on Lopez de Victoria. Though the issue is in the range of certworthiness, I ordinarily would think that the chances of the SG seeking cert would be low given that the services cannot even decide what they think should be the right result. However, I wonder if Denedo increases the probability the SG can be convinced to seek cert, where the cases could be paired together as an "is CAAF exceeding its jurisdiction or not" set of cases. I should note that my own view is that the issue in Lopez de Victoria is a close one but my better guess is that CAAF has it right. On Denedo, well, my mother once told me what one should do when he or she has nothing nice to say.

Cloudesley Shovell said...

CAAF has just denied recon in US v. Denedo. Assuming the gov't seeks cert in both, the Supreme Court will get a chance to look at both cases.