Court Opinion

ID: 9836832
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-02 03:15:11.851945+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:45:19.015311
License: Public Domain

GIERKE, Judge
(concurring in part and dissenting in part):
I agree with the majority’s resolution of Issue II. In my view, Issue I was waived. United States v. Huffman, 40 MJ-225, 228-29 (CMA 1994).
This is one more case demonstrating the wisdom of the waiver rule in RCM 905(e). Appellant is not an inexperienced sailor. As the majority notes, at the time of the alleged offenses in 1988, he was 38-year-old commissioned officer with 17 years of service. By the time he was tried in 1994, he was in his 40s and retirement eligible. He did not find his conditions of pretrial confinement sufficiently onerous to challenge them at trial. In my view, the result of the majority opinion is to allow sandbagging by this appellant, and to leave the court below with a Hobson’s *157choice of investigating a stale, 6-year-old allegation or giving appellant a windfall.
As a final note, I believe that Article 13 issues in future guilty-plea cases could be resolved easily in a manner consistent with both the majority and minority opinions in Huffman, if military judges would conclude their plea inquiry with a question whether there is any claim of unlawful pretrial punishment.