Friday, January 22, 2010

Where can I find UCMJ case law? Cases tried against the UCMJ and their verdicts?

I am looking for any site that has cases tried against the articles found in the UCMJ. Service members who have been brought up on charges of violations of these articles, and what the verdict was, evidence presented, and the ruling opinion from the court.Where can I find UCMJ case law? Cases tried against the UCMJ and their verdicts?
One issue with military law is that the trial court does not ';publish'; orders in the way that Federal District Courts often do. So you're really going to be looking at how the appeals courts dealt with the material. Usually the appellate court will tell you what happened in the underlying case. Here is the structure in which UCMJ cases are tried and appealed under the following structure:





Trial Court--Based on the rules of the service in which the trial is conducted (usually this is the service members' branch, but, for example in Joint Commands, it may not be)





First Level Appellate--Court of Appeals for the relevant Branch (For example the Army Court of Criminal Appeals)





Second Level Appellate-- US Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces (handles appeals from all Branches (ie. Army, Navy, Air Force)





Highest Appellate Level--- US Supreme Court





(Additionally, military law may arise indirectly in other state and federal proceedings. For example, when states look at how to apply past military convictions they will look to the UCMJ in order to determine if a particular crime was a felony)





Here is a link to the US Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, which contains opinions going back to the 1996-97 term.





http://www.armfor.uscourts.gov/Opinions.htm





This is the link for the Army Court of Appeals, which has opinions published back to 1995. It also contains the links to the other appellate courts:





https://www.jagcnet.army.mil/8525749F007224E4





I also recommend the Cornell site (which is very good for civilian legal research as well). The Cornell site has links to most of the applicable law, including the US Supreme Court.





http://topics.law.cornell.edu/wex/Military





If you are a lawyer looking to help a client, in order to thoroughly research case law you would either need a military law library or access to Westlaw or Lexis. (Or you can work with the Trial Defense Attorney (assigned to every service member facing charges) to split up research needs... I was a TDS attorney and often did research and pulled cases)Where can I find UCMJ case law? Cases tried against the UCMJ and their verdicts?
Try these (no pun intended).
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