UNITED STATES ARMY COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS 

Before 

WOLFE, SALUSSOLIA, and ALDYKIEWICZ 

Appellate Military Judges 

UNITED STATES, Appellant 

v. 

Specialist GERALD D. ARNO 

United States Army, Appellee 

ARMY MISC 20180699 

Headquarters, Fort Drum 

Teresa Raymond., Military Judge 

Lieutenant Colonel Jennifer A. Neuhauser, Staff Judge Advocate 

For Appellee: Lieutenant Colonel Tiffany D. Pond, JA; Major Jack D. Einhorn, JA; 

Captain Benjamin J. Wetherell, JA; Captain Benjamin A. Accinelli, JA (on brief). 

For Appellant: Colonel Steven P. Haight, JA; Lieutenant Colonel Eric K. Stafford, 

JA; Captain Allison L. Rowley, JA; Captain Catharine M. Parnell, JA (on brief). 

26 February 2019 

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SUMMARY DISPOSITION AND ACTION ON APPEAL 

BY THE UNITED STATES FILED PUSUANT TO 

ARTICLE 62, UNIFORM CODE OF MILITARY JUSTICE 

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Per Curiam: 

 Today we determine that the military judge erred as a matter of law when she 

suppressed statements made by the accused for lack of corroboration. Accordingly, 

we grant the government’s appeal pursuant to Article 62, Uniform Code of Military 

Justice [UCMJ].1

 

1

 On 23 May 2018, the convening authority referred the following specifications 

against the accused to a general court-martial: two specifications of sexual assault; 

two specifications of abusive sexual contact; and, one specification of indecent 

conduct in violation of Articles 120 and 134, UCMJ, 10 U.S.C. §§ 920 and 934 

(2012). All of the charged offenses are alleged to have occurred on one occasion in 

September 2015 involving the same alleged victim. 
ARNO—ARMY MISC 20180699 

2 

BACKGROUND 

 The accused and the alleged victim were both soldiers who had deployed 

together to Honduras from April 2015 until April 2016. After the deployment, they 

continued to occasionally text each other. On 15 June 2017, in the midst of a textmessage conversation, and apropos of nothing, the accused sent the alleged victim 

the following text: 

Well damn lol. Is it crazy that even though we never had 

sex I still remember what your pussy feels, smells, and 

tastes. 

 The text conversation continued without the alleged victim directly addressing 

what appellant had said. The accused then brought it up again: 

Well all I can say is one regret that I don’t have is that I 

played with your pussy and tasted it while you were 

passed out[,] not the right answer but it happened. 

 After the subsequent involvement of law enforcement, the accused admitted to 

a U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command (CID), special agent that he had 

digitally penetrated the alleged victim while she was asleep. 

 The defense moved to suppress the accused’s statements for lack of 

corroboration under Military Rule of Evidence [Mil. R. Evid.] 304(c). 

 To corroborate the accused’s statements, the government introduced evidence 

that the accused and alleged victim were both deployed together in Honduras, had 

hung out with each other and would get intoxicated together, and would both be in 

her room. There was also evidence the accused was sexually interested in the 

alleged victim and would make sexually suggestive comments to her. The alleged 

victim took a combination of medications that made her sleep heavily during the 

deployment. 

 The government also provided the court with a text message exchange from 

the Honduras deployment that begins with the accused asking, “We are good right?” 

The alleged victim responds by stating that she has no memory of the previous 

night’s events, and asks the accused if she had remained clothed. After discussing 

whether or not she had vomited, and after she complains of a severe hangover, the 

accused stated, “I’d be [sic] lying if I said I didn’t want to sleep with you last 

night.” 
ARNO—ARMY MISC 20180699 

3 

 The alleged victim had no memory of having any sexual contact with the 

accused. The government proffered no physical evidence to support that a sex act 

had happened. 

 The military judge granted the accused’s motion to suppress the accused’s 

statements. The military judge rejected the government’s argument that the 

statements were corroborated.2 The military judge found as follows: 

The Government produced only evidence confirming 

issues tangential to the subject matter of the confessions 

and admissions made by the Accused. None of the 

corroborating evidence produced had anything to do with 

the criminal conduct to which the Accused had confessed 

about which he felt guilty or incriminated himself. 

 Essential to the military judge’s ruling was that the corroborating evidence 

must directly address the part of the accused’s statement that admits guilt. The 

corroboration, the military judge ruled, “needs to address the ‘acknowledgement of 

guilt’ or ‘incriminating statement.’” Here, as the accused admitted to sexual 

conduct with a passed out person, the military judge’s ruling required the 

government to corroborate that the victim was passed out and that the sexual act 

occurred.3 

 The military judge therefore found that the government’s proffered 

corroboration had “no relevance specifically to the confessions and admissions at 

all.”4 

 

2

 The military judge also rejected the government’s arguments that the text messages 

were separately admissible as a present sense impression and as residual hearsay. 

3

 Immediately after professing a lack of memory of the night before, the alleged 

victim asks the accused, “What happened?” and “Did I keep my clothes on?” While 

other interpretations are possible given the record, one interpretation is that the 

alleged victim was expressing a concern that she had engaged in sexual conduct that 

she could not recall. 

4

 In her initial ruling on the motion to suppress the military judge concluded her 

ruling by stating: 

The sending of sexually suggestive or explicit texts is not 

sufficiently indicative of sexual assault. To conclude 

otherwise would be to indict an entire generation in our 

current sexting-heavy society. 

(continued . . .) 
ARNO—ARMY MISC 20180699 

4 

LAW AND DISCUSSION 

 We conclude the military judge misapplied the law. Military Rule of 

Evidence 304(c) requires that the government introduce evidence that would “tend” 

to establish the trustworthiness of the admission. The quantum of the evidence 

required is “slight.” See Mil. R. Evid. 304(c)(4) (“The independent evidence need 

raise only an inference of the truth of the admission or confession.”); see also 

United States v. Jones, 78 M.J. 37, 42 (C.A.A.F. 2018) (“[The CAAF has] 

traditionally [] described the quantum of evidence needed as being ‘slight.’”) (citing 

United States v. Adams, 74 M.J. 137, 140 (C.A.A.F. 2015)). 

 Nothing in the rule requires that the evidence tending to establish 

trustworthiness is limited to the criminal act itself. When an accused confesses to 

committing a certain crime in a certain place in a certain manner, evidence that the 

accused was actually at that place, and had the specific motive to commit that crime, 

can be considered when determining whether the confession is trustworthy. Motive 

and opportunity are not irrelevant considerations. 

 Instead, the military judge required that the corroboration evidence come only 

from evidence corroborating the “criminal conduct to which the Accused had 

confessed . . . .” There is not much daylight between the standard articulated by the 

military judge, and a requirement that the government corroborate the corpus delicti

of the offense; a standard which courts at all levels have rejected. See, e.g., Opper 

v. United States, 348 U.S. 84 (1954); United States v. Seay, 60 M.J. 73 (C.A.A.F. 

2004); United States v. Egan, 53 M.J. 570 (Army Ct. Crim. App. 2000). 

 Now, to be sure, just because there is evidence that tends to establish the 

trustworthiness of an accused’s confession does not mean that the truth of the 

confession has been determined. An accused is free to attack the admissibility of the 

evidence on other grounds or may seek to undermine the weight the factfinder 

should give the evidence. 

 

(. . . continued) 

The text messages in question are not merely “sexually suggestive” or “explicit.” 

The messages admit to “tasting” and “play[ing] with” the genitals of a woman who is 

“passed out.” A person who is asleep or unconscious is incapable of giving consent 

as a matter of law. See UCMJ art. 120(b)(2). To conclude that the messages are not 

“indicative of sexual assault” is grossly inconsistent with the UCMJ. However, this 

language was not included in the military judge’s final ruling, which is the focus of 

this court’s opinion. 
ARNO—ARMY MISC 20180699 

5 

CONCLUSION 

The military judge’s ruling suppressing the accused’s statements is SET 

ASIDE, the government appeal is GRANTED, and the case is returned to the 

military judge for action consistent with this opinion. 

FOR THE COURT: 

 MALCOLM H. SQUIRES, JR. 

Clerk of Court 

MALCOLM H. SQUIRES, JR. 

Clerk of Court 

FOR THE COURT: