Court Opinion

ID: 9836934
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-02 03:15:34.084423+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:45:19.372656
License: Public Domain

EFFRON, Judge
(dissenting):
Throughout the sentencing and post-trial process, appellant consistently sought to preclude the adjudication and approval of a punitive discharge. His defense counsel negated his efforts during the post-trial process by affirmatively requesting that the convening authority approve a bad-conduct discharge.
There is no evidence of record that defense counsel’s action — which undermined appellant’s efforts to obtain a non-punitive, general discharge — was taken with appellant’s knowledge or approval.
There is ample evidence, however, that defense counsel’s request was contrary to appellant’s wishes. During the trial, appellant made it clear that a bad-conduct discharge was not acceptable to him. Pointing out that he had been placed on administrative hold only 1 day before his enlistment was set to expire, he specifically told the military judge that he did not want to suffer the humiliation of a punitive discharge. At trial, defense counsel — consistent with appellant’s wishes — -pleaded for leniency and did not argue for a punitive discharge of any type.
After trial, appellant expressly continued his effort to avoid a punitive discharge. Appellant’s father, mother, wife, and sister all wrote letters to the convening authority, each asking the convening authority to substitute a general discharge for the adjudged dishonorable discharge. These letters were contained in appellant’s clemency package. In addition, as the majority opinion notes, appellant’s own letter to the convening authority specifically requested “that my Dishonorable be ehange[d] to General.”
As the Government expressly recognizes at page 4 of its brief, defense counsel may not ask a court-martial to impose a punitive discharge when contrary to a client’s wishes. United States v. Dresen, 40 MJ 462, 465 (CMA 1994), citing United States v. Robinson, 25 MJ 43 (CMA 1987); United States v. Webb, 5 MJ 406 (CMA 1978); United States v. Weatherford, 19 USCMA 424, 42 CMR 26 (CMA 1970). When defense counsel seeks or concedes the appropriateness of a punitive discharge — even as a tactical step to accomplish mitigation of other elements of a possible sentence — counsel must make a record that such advocacy is pursuant to his client’s wishes. Id., citing United States v. Lyons, 36 MJ 425 (CMA 1993); United States v. McNally, 16 MJ 32 (CMA 1983).
This Court has extended these principles to post-trial advocacy that asks for or accepts the appropriateness of an adjudged punitive discharge. See Dresen, supra at 465. There is no indication in the record that defense counsel was acting pursuant to appellant’s wishes. I would hold that defense counsel’s *55performance was deficient under the first prong of Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984).
In terms of the second prong, prejudice, I agree with the majority that in order to demonstrate prejudice, appellant need only make “some colorable showing of possible prejudice.” United States v. Wheelus, 49 MJ 288, 289 (1998), quoting United States v. Chatman, 46 MJ 321, 323-24. The convening authority has the highly discretionary authority to approve or disapprove all or part of the sentence for reasons of clemency or otherwise as a matter of command prerogative. Appellant had a colorable case for clemency. His crimes were not violent, he was in his first term of enlistment, and he had been placed on administrative hold 1 day before the end of that enlistment. He asked for relief so that he could support his wife and daughter, both of whom had health problems.
The question is not whether we would grant clemency; it is whether defense counsel’s actions deprived appellant of a reasonable opportunity to obtain clemency from the convening authority. Defense counsel, by conceding that a bad-conduct discharge was appropriate, made it easy for the convening authority to believe that the only clemency appellant wanted was reducing his dishonorable discharge to a bad-conduct discharge. Under these circumstances, defense counsel undermined the case made by appellant and his family for a general discharge.
A servicemember is entitled to the exercise of a convening authority’s broad and unfettered discretion with the effective assistance of counsel. When counsel undermines the essence of his or her client’s post-trial submission, that is both ineffective and prejudicial. I would return the case for a new post-trial proceeding.