Court Opinion

ID: 9836953
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-02 03:15:39.909771+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:45:19.517057
License: Public Domain

SULLIVAN, Judge
(concurring in the result):
The trend in military housing is for the Department of Defense to give more privacy *424to the servicemember, e.g., single rooms. See generally United States v. Middleton, 10 MJ 123, 128 n. 8 (CMA 1981). The new standard of the majority illustrates an opposing trend in the military justice system which encroaches on a servieemember’s privacy. See United States v. McCarthy, 38 MJ 398 (CMA 1993). I do not join it. Id. at 404 (Sullivan, C.J., concurring in the result).
The particular question before the Court is whether the Court of Criminal Appeals and the trial judge correctly defined “open and notorious” as meaning “reasonably likely to be seen by others.” These rulings were based on the Court of Criminal Appeals’s decision in United States v. Carr, 28 MJ 661 (NMCMR 1989). This is a change from our decision in United States v. Berry, 6 USCMA 609, 614, 20 CMR 325, 330 (1956), which defines open and notorious as requiring “the actual presence of other persons.” In my view, Carr is an extension of our case law and, as indicated above, I believe goes too far.
In any event, the Court of Criminal Appeals and the trial judge employed this new standard and affirmed both of appellant’s convictions in this case. Paradoxically, the majority adopts the lower court’s standard, yet sets aside one of these convictions. Moreover, in terms of this new standard, it does not explain the difference between a sheet in a room and a closed but unlocked door which was opened by a roommate suspecting sexual conduct. I reach the same result as the majority, but I do so relying on the “actual presence” standard of Berry.