Court Opinion

ID: 9836779
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-02 03:15:01.761355+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:45:18.865427
License: Public Domain

SULLIVAN, Judge
(concurring in the result):
There was no prejudicial error when the military judge denied appellant’s motion to suppress evidence seized from appellant’s home and from Super Zippo. Regarding the warrant obtained by the local civilian law enforcement officials to search appellant’s home, there was no violation of the Posse Comitatus Act, see United States v. Thompson, 33 MJ 218 (CMA 1991), and the totality of the circumstances establish that the magistrate judge had sufficient information to determine that probable cause existed. See United States v. Monroe, 52 MJ 326 (2000). Appellant does not have a constitutional reasonable expectation of privacy in the records obtained from Super Zippo. See United States v. Maxwell, 45 MJ 406, 418 (1996). Furthermore, the Electronic Communication Privacy Act does not require suppression for failure to comply with its provisions, absent a violation of a constitutional right. Cf. 18 USC § 2703(c); United States v. Thompson, supra; United States v. Thompson, 936 F.2d 1249 (11th Cir.1991).
The other granted issue involves Article 125, UCMJ, 10 USC § 925, which states:
(a) Any person subject to this chapter who engages in unnatural carnal copulation with another person of the same or opposite sex or with an animal is guilty of sodomy. Penetration, however slight, is sufficient to complete the offense.
*411(b) Any person found guilty of sodomy shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.
Just as this Court has held that Article 125 prohibits private, heterosexual, consensual oral sex, see United States v. Henderson, 34 MJ 174 (1992), so too today the Court holds that anal sex is a violation of the statute. Cf. United States v. Thompson, 47 MJ 378 (1997). In the military, the law seems clear — any type of sodomy remains a crime. I will continue to apply the law as written, which makes no mention of a marital exception.