Friday, June 12, 2009

CAAF grants

CAAF granted review of two Air Force cases yesterday. The granted issue in United States v. Ellis, No. 09-0382/AF, is: "Whether the military judge abused his discretion by allowing the government's expert witness to testify concerning Appellant's risk of recidivism." AFCCA's unpublished decision in the case is available here.

The granted issue in United States v. Myers, No. 09-0304/AF, is: "Whether the Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals erred in failing to grant any sentence relief to Appellant when that court found Appellant's due process right to timely post-trial processing was violated by the Government taking an unreasonable 946 days to return the record of trial to that court after remand for new post-trial processing." CAAF ordered that no briefs be filed. AFCCA's unpublished decision in the case is available here.
Posted by Dwight Sullivan at 5:52 PM
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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

"In the CLASSICAL sense of the word, appellant is a child predator."

As opposed to what other "sense of the word?" Faux-intellectual smartass "judging" the result of the case based on the abhorrent facts. How not to be a judge 101.

Fri Jun 12, 07:11:00 PM EDT
Phil Cave said...

This is the reason I usually ask for a properly done psycho-sexual evaluation in such cases.
The government expert's methodology is flawed. Many states now require a specialized certification in PSE and sexual offender treatment because it is a highly specialize field.
A properly done PSE requires more than just looking at the witness testimony, etc. It requires extensive interview and testing of the accused.
Many civilian courts, including federal, require a proper PSE as part of the pretrial sentencing report.
I don't believe that a qualified examiner can come to a conclusion based solely on the investigative reports. This government hack was off the reservation.
Here is a link that is useful to understand what's really involved in "predicting" a risk of recidivism.
http://socb.idaho.gov/Misc%20PDF%20files/Psychosexual%20eval%20standard%20outline.pdf

Fri Jun 12, 07:33:00 PM EDT
Anonymous said...

Probably made no difference but not sure I understand making the IAC claim that defense counsel didn't use their expert to rebut. Odds were extremely high that they didn't do so precisely because their expert either agreed or didn't substantially disagree. Seems to me those affidavits from the attorneys after the IAC claim just supported the idea that there was nothing wrong with the expert's methodology, whether there was or not.

Fri Jun 12, 11:20:00 PM EDT
Cossio said...

Hmmm...I've been seeing a lot of opinions being churned out by AFCCA were they have found errors but have been stingy with the sentence relief.

It seems that out of all the branches, the CCA in the AF is the most stingy.

Sat Jun 13, 12:15:00 AM EDT
Anonymous said...

The IAC claim was per Grostefon.

Sun Jun 14, 08:14:00 AM EDT

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