While I was away last week learning about the joy of MAGTFery, I had unexpectedly limited Internet access.  So I’m playing catch-up this weekend.  Here’s a link to audio of NMCCA’s 25 January oral argument in Pineda, which was heard at the George Washington University Law School.

An alert reader called our attention to this essay by Judge Posner bemoaning the Bluebook and its influence.  Richard A. Posner, The Bluebook Blues, 120 Yale L.J. 850 (2011).  Judge Posner argues that basic citation conventions are useful but that the Bluebook seeks to impose unnecessary or even harmful uniformity on almos every aspect of citation style.  He illustrates that point with a discussion of the “The Bluebook‘s obsession with abbreviations.”  Judge Posner observes:

The basic rule of abbreviating, ignored by the authors of The Bluebook is to avoid nonobvious abbreviations: don’t make the reader puzzle over an abbreviation, as The Bluebook does routinely. Consider “Temp. Envtl. L. & Tech. J.,” “ILSA J. Int’l & Comp. L.,” “Emp. Rts. & Emp. Pol’y J.,” and “AIPLA Q.J.” These are names of journals. Now try figuring out “B.T.A.M. (P-H),” “A. Ct. Crim. App.,” “A.F. Ct. Crim. App.,” “C.G. Ct. Crim. App.,” “N-M Ct. Crim. App.,” “Ne. Reg’l Parole Comm’n,” and “Cent. Ill. Pub. Serv. Co.”

What is the point? It’s as if there were a heavy tax on letters, making it costly to write out Coast Guard Court of Criminal Appeals instead of abbreviating it “C.G. Ct. Crim. App.”

Id. at 853.

Here’s a link to audio of the last week’s oral argument before the Air Force Court in the Article 62 appeal in United States v. Danylo, Misc. Dkt. No. 2010-15.

Audio of NMCCA’s oral argument in United States v. Lee is now available here.

Michelle Lindo-McCluer has a nice summary of the Behenna oral argument at NIMJ Blog.  The first news report is out from KOCO, here. Not much:

[Behenna's mother, an AUSA] said the Army appeals court hearing the case asked a lot of tough questions on Thursday. She said she didn’t know when the panel will rule. 

More later.

 They’re available here.

The oral argument in United States v. Behenna will take place at ACCA on Thursday.  There’s been a great deal of discussion of the case in our comments section,  but the briefs don’t appear to be available online.  The only court filing I’ve been able to get my hands on is NACDL’s amicus motion filed at the court-martial level, which we’ve posted here.

Audio of NMCCA’s oral argument in United States v. Hohman — an Article 62 appeal concerning the right to counsel where a member of the defense team reaches his EAS — is now available here.

Thanks to an alert reader, we now have a copy of the Holmes petition for extraordinary relief, which we discussed here.  We’ve posted the petition for writ of mandamus and stay here.

Here’s the content of the order that ACCA issued in the case yesterday:

On 19 November 2010, Petitioner filed with this Court a Petition for Relief in the Nature of a Writ of Mandamus and Application for Stay of Proceedings.

NOW, THEREFORE, IT IS ORDERED:

1.  That Petitioner’s request for a stay in the proceedings is granted;

2.  That the Government Appellate Division shall answer the pleadings which have been filed by counsel for Petitioner within twenty (20) days of this Order;

3.  That Petitioner may file a reply to the Government’s answer within fourteen (14) days of receipt of the Government’s answer to this Order.

Holmes v. United States, No. ARMY MISC 20100918 (A. Ct. Crim. App. Nov. 19, 2010).

Reuters reports here that one of the accured in the “Ramrod Five/Stryker Brigade” cases has filed a petition for extraordinary relief with ACCA seeking a writ unsealing apparently grisly photographic evidence for use at the Article 32.

Reuters reports:

According to the appeals court petition, Holmes is effectively being denied his constitutional right to a public trial because defense attorneys cannot cross-examine military investigators in open court about photographs entered as prosecution evidence but kept under seal.

The defense maintains the photos in question are unclassified and would exonerate Holmes by demonstrating the victim was not killed by the kind of automatic weapon Holmes was armed with at the time.

h/t Phil Cave’s Court-Martial Trial Practice blog

And thanks to Snuffy in the comments for informing us that ACCA has issued a stay and a show cause order.

Here’s a link to audio of last week’s NMCCA argument in United States v. Spicer.

First in July and then in August, we noted that three published ACCA opinions–Trigueros, Hudgins, and Watson–had never shown up on WESTLAW.  Finally, the three are now on WESTLAW indicating to-be-published status.  Trigueros is a particularly important discovery case, so it’s good to see it finally poised for publication.

Secretary of Defense Gates has assgined five additional CCA judges to be dual-hatted as Court of Military Commission Review judges.  Four of the five new CMCR  judges come from ACCA while the fifth comes from NMCCA.  Here they are:  COL David Conn (Army), COL Martin Sims (Army), COL John Hoffman (Army), COL Theresa Gallagher (Army), and Col Joseph R. Perlak (USMC).

NIMJ’s Executive Director Michelle Lindo McCluer — a former JAJG counsel — has posted this very helpful synopsis of AFCCA’s rule changes, which take effect Monday.  The new rules are available here.

AFCCA has amended its rules effective 11 October 2010.  The new rules are available here.  (We haven’t flyspecked them yet to see what’s changed.)