CAAF today (er, yesterday) released its opinion in United States v. Campbell, __ M.J. ___, No. 08-0660/NA (C.A.A.F. Dec. 10, 2009).  Here’s a link.

We’d been anticipating the Campbell decision to learn whether possession of the same image of child pornography on different media constitutes separate offenses. But Campbelldoesn’t decide that issue, holding that the specs weren’t facially duplicative but going no further because the accused’s guilty pleas waived his challenge to whether those specs should have merged.  CAAF also observed that while the accused raised an unreasonable multiplication of charges issue at NMCCA, that issue wasn’t before CAAF.

CAAF may have another chance to reach the merits of similar issues this term in the already-granted case of United States v. Craig, No. 09-0759/NA. 

CAAF also agreed with the parties that NMCCA misunderstood the military judge’s ruling regarding multiplicity for sentencing purposes and remanded the case for a sentence reassessment do-over. (NMCCA had conducted a sentence reassessment because it determined that the military judge should have treated three specs alleging possession of the same child pornography images as multiplicious for sentencing purposes.)

Judge Stucky wrote for a unanimous court.

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