Court Opinion

ID: 9836899
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-02 03:15:27.856315+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:45:19.232103
License: Public Domain

EFFRON, Judge
(dissenting):
I would reverse on the ground that the military judge erred in failing to grant the challenge to SSgt B.
The majority quotes the well-established principle that “challenges for cause are to be liberally granted.” 52 MJ at 92-93, quoting United States v. Glenn, 25 MJ 278, 279 (CMA 1987). The liberal-grant mandate reflects the fundamental distinctions between a jury and a court-martial panel. As we noted in United States v. Tulloch, 47 MJ 283 (1997):
(1) courts-martial are not subject to the jury trial requirements of the Constitution; (2) military accused are tried by a panel of their superiors, not by a jury of their peers; (3) military panels are selected by the commander who convened the court-martial on a best-qualified basis and are not drawn from a random cross-section of the community; (4) military counsel are provided with only a single peremptory challenge, in contrast to the numerous peremptory challenges permitted by most civilian jurisdictions; and (5) in civilian jurisdictions, the numerous peremptory challenges are used to select a jury, but in courts-martial, a peremptory challenge is used to eliminate those already selected by the convening authority-
Id. at 285-86 (internal quotation marks omitted).
In the military justice system, the convening authority — who performs the critical prosecutorial task of determining which cases shall be referred to trial by court-martial— also determines the composition of the court-martial panel. Arts. 22-25, UCMJ, 10 USC §§ 822-825, respectively. The convening authority’s discretion is constrained by Article 25, which provides that the convening authority shall detail for court-martial duty “such members of the armed forces as, in his opinion, are best qualified for the duty by reason of age, education, training, experience, length of service, and judicial temperament.”
*97The material excerpted from the record in the majority opinion demonstrates that SSgt B was not qualified — much less “best qualified” — to exercise the judicial temperament expected of a member of a court-martial panel. Throughout the extensive voir dire by the military judge and counsel for both parties, she demonstrated a firm and unwavering support for sentences that have long been outside the accepted range of punishments in military jurisprudence, including castration of persons convicted of rape and amputation of limbs for persons convicted of theft. See W. Winthrop, Military Law and Precedents 437 — 442 (2d ed. 1920 Reprint). Although she agreed that sentences should be tailored to individual circumstances, she insisted that there were cases in which castration or amputation should be imposed as an appropriate punishment.
Lay persons selected to serve on courts-martial need not exhibit either the detailed understanding of legal concepts expected of judges or the same degree of judicial temperament expected of framed judges. Nonetheless, members of the armed forces have the right to expect that convening authorities will exercise their extraordinary panel-selection powers to exclude those who lack the type of judicial temperament necessary to ensure a fair trial on the merits and the sentencing proceeding. The “liberal grant” mandate is designed to ensure that, if information raising serious doubts about a person’s qualifications comes to the attention of the court-martial, the military judge will grant the challenge to ensure compliance with the purposes of Article 25.
SSgt B’s extreme views would have disqualified her from sitting on a court-martial considering rape or larceny. The majority suggests that because “rape and larceny were not charged,” her extreme views were not of significance. 52 MJ at 93. I disagree. If a person is so lacking in judicial temperament that she could not sit on a ease involving rape or larceny, she is hardly qualified to deal with the emotional impact of the ease in which charges involved a brutal murder with significant sexual overtones. I would hold that the decision by the military judge to deny the challenge of SSgt B constituted a clear abuse of discretion.