Court Opinion

ID: 9836933
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-02 03:15:34.082004+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:45:19.371635
License: Public Domain

CRAWFORD, Judge
(concurring in the result):
While the majority prefers to rely on the second prong of the Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668,104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984), test, I believe that defense counsel’s request for a bad-conduct discharge supports the proposition that counsel was not deficient.
The key to effective advocacy on behalf of one’s client is one’s own credibility as counsel. This requires the advocate to do many things and balance many decisions, including making rational choices based on the unique circumstances of each case and the probabilities of what the decision maker might do. Counsel then structures arguments around those probabilities. We have recognized that a military defendant is entitled to the effective assistance of counsel at the pretrial, trial, and post-trial stages, and that this includes submitting post-trial matters to the convening authority, as in this case. But here, counsel decided, based on the probabilities, that the best he could hope for was a commutation of the dishonorable discharge to a bad-conduct discharge. Such a decision does not amount to ineffectiveness of counsel. Any implications by the majority to the contrary are factually wrong and disregard our precedent.
As the majority recognizes, the record is not silent as to the desires of appellant. See United States v. Holcomb, 20 USCMA 309, 310, 43 CMR 149, 150 (1971). Here, as in United States v. Lyons, 36 MJ 425, 427 (CMA 1993), “[t]he record clearly demonstrates that appellant desired to return to his family as soon as possible and that he hoped to minimize his ... [discharge] by asking for a bad conduct-discharge____” Under such circumstances, we held in Lyons “that the military judge did not err by declining to conduct an inquiry on the record regarding appellant’s request for punitive discharge.” Id.
Or, as we stated in United States v. Mitchell, 16 USCMA 302, 304, 36 CMR 458, 460 (1966):
There may be cases in which the offense is “so heinous or so repugnant to common decency” that all in the military would, at first thought, at least, believe the accused should be sentenced to a punitive discharge. In such cases, it might perhaps be an allowable defense tactic to plead affirmatively only for leniency as to the period of confinement and accessory penalties.
(Citation omitted.)
In United States v. Volmar, 15 MJ 339, 340 (CMA 1983), we recognized the type of *54concession that was made in this case. We should not shy away from that now. In that case, we held it was proper to suggest a bad-conduct discharge, rather than a dishonorable discharge. Id. at 342-13. As we stated:
[S]ince defense counsel was performing his duties in a way which the trial judge would logically have assumed was in appellant’s best interests, the judge had no obligation to stop the trial in order to interrogate appellant and his counsel as to whether the argument had been authorized by the client.... Moreover, asking appellant to decide whether defense counsel had made the very best tactical choice in arguing on an appropriate sentence would seem to be a fruitless exercise.
Id. at 343-44. In the end, we concluded:
From our examination of this record, we conclude that defense counsel did not fall in his duties as an advocate by suggesting that — instead of adjudging a dishonorable discharge, as urged forcefully by the prosecutor — [the court members] impose only a bad-eonduet discharge.
Id. at 344.
In summary, counsel should not be required to make hopeless or irrational arguments in their submissions to convening authorities. Such arguments only serve to undercut counsel’s credibility with convening authorities and thus diminish their advocacy on behalf of their clients. I would hold that counsel was not deficient under the first prong of Strickland and, therefore, it is unnecessary to reach the second prong.