In United States v. Miranda-Zapata, No. 200800865 (N-M. Ct. Crim. App. Jan. 19,2010) (unpublished) the accused pled guilty, inter alia, to conspiring to distribute morphine. Though not raised by the parties, the court noted the conspiracy charge failed to list an “overt act”, the second element of conspiracy. The military judge noted this issue during […]
Your court martial defense lawyer should, if possible, argue that a lab report is testimonial. If the lab report is testimonial, then the government needs to have the report’s creator testify. To prove the testimonial nature of the report, the defense should put in defense discovery requests to probe how routine or random the lab […]
The Three-Part Test To determine whether a statement is testimonial, CAAF used a three-part test in U.S. v. Rankin, 64 M.J. 348, 352 (2007). CAAF considered the following: Was the statement at issue elicited by or made in response to law enforcement or prosecutorial inquiry? Did the statement involve more than a routine and objective […]
When fighting drug cases, the issue of lab certificates often comes up, specifically whether your defense attorney should agree to stipulate to those certificates. While all circumstances are different, your military court-martial defense lawyer should at least consider agreeing to a lab certificate in urinalysis cases if: The government agrees to produce additional overseas or non-local defense […]
a previous blog, we discussed when an experienced drug court martial defense lawyer could use Melendez-Diaz as a sword when fighting military urinalysis charges. There are also times when we believe you should not do so. Your military defense lawyer likely should not use the Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts sword if it will get you nothing or hurt […]
Spice Use and the Law Historical discussion: The account below concerns Spice litigation and regulations in 2009–2010. It is not a statement that the same regulatory wording or alleged loophole controls today. For a current case, the actual substance and its controlled status must be established. Article 112a can apply to covered controlled substances; a […]
Given the substantial amount of new “Spice” cases we are seeing, specifically in the Pacific, we thought it would be appropriate to run a series of blogs on “Spice.” Not surprisingly, commands are attempting to make what is essentially legal in the United States and in most countries – illegal for service members. We were successful in February of this […]