Case ID: cma_20/html/0127-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Quinn, Chief Judge: Ferguson, Judge", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

UNITED STATES, Appellee v DAVID L. SPRAGUE, Private First Class, U. S. Marine Corps, Appellant
    20 USCMA 127, 42 CMR 319
    No. 23,276
    November 6, 1970
    
      Captain R. O. Kellam, JAGC, USN, was on the pleadings for Appellant, Accused.
    
      Lieutenant Colonel Charles J. Keever, USMC, was on the pleadings for Appellee, United States.
   Opinion of the Court

Quinn, Chief Judge:

We affirm the decision of the United States Navy Court of Military Review. United States v Palos, 20 USCMA 104, 42 CMR 296, decided this date.

Judge Darden concurs.

Ferguson, Judge

(dissenting):

I dissent.

I disagree with my brothers’ holding in this ease that the plea of guilty was properly accepted by the military judge for the reasons set forth in my separate opinion in United States v Palos, 20 USCMA 104, 42 CMR 296 (1970).

The military judge’s failure to make a specific finding on the record that the accused knowingly, intelligently, and consciously waived his right against self-incrimination, his right to trial of the facts by a court-martial, and his right to be confronted by the witnesses against him, is, in my opinion, reversible error. Cf. United States v Donohew, 18 USCMA 149, 39 CMR 149 (1969); United States v Fortier, 19 USCMA 149, 41 CMR 149 (1969). Without this specific finding on the record, the record is not verbatim as required by law. See my separate opinion in Palos, supra.