United States v. Berlingeri

35 M.J. 794, 1992 CMR LEXIS 653, 1992 WL 233610
CourtU.S. Navy-Marine Corps Court of Military Review
DecidedAugust 28, 1992
DocketNMCM 92 0287
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 35 M.J. 794 (United States v. Berlingeri) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering U.S. Navy-Marine Corps Court of Military Review primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Berlingeri, 35 M.J. 794, 1992 CMR LEXIS 653, 1992 WL 233610 (usnmcmilrev 1992).

Opinion

ORR, Senior Judge:

Consistent with his pleas, the appellant was convicted of one specification of conspiracy to commit housebreaking and larceny and six specifications of housebreaking with the intent to commit larceny in violation, respectively, of Articles 81 and 130, Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), 10 U.S.C. §§ 881 and 930. Before a military judge sitting alone, the appellant was sentenced to confinement for four months, forfeiture of $500.00 pay per month for four months, and a bad-conduct discharge. Under the terms of a pretrial agreement, the convening authority was to suspend all confinement in excess of 100 days for 12 months from the date of trial. Before this Court, the appellant assigns five errors.1

[795]*795Due to the number of errors in the post-trial processing of this ease, of which the second and fifth assigned errors only touch upon two, and our decision that the convening authority and his legal officer should make a fresh attempt to take a legally sufficient action, we need not address the third and fourth assigned errors at this time.2 Because the first assignment of error raises a jurisdictional issue concerning the convening of this court-martial in the first instance, we will initially address that assertion.

Pretrial Processing

The convening authority referred the charges in this case to a court composed of two officers and three enlisted personnel.3 The convening order and the referral were signed on the same day. There is no indication in the record of .trial that the appellant ever made a request for enlisted members, but no members, officer or enlisted, actually served since the appellant requested trial by the military judge alone during the initial Article 39(a) session at the beginning of his trial. The appellant asserts that without such a request for enlisted members, the attempt to convene this court-martial was contrary to Article 25, UCMJ, 10 U.S.C. § 825, and was invalid. In support of this conclusion, the appellant cites McClaughry v. Deming, 186 U.S. 49, 22 S.Ct. 786, 46 L.Ed. 1049 (1902), and United States v. White, 21 U.S.C.M.A. 583, 45 C.M.R. 357, 1972 WL 14193 (1972).

Article 25 of the UCMJ provides, in relevant part:

(c)(1) Any enlisted member of an armed force on active duty who is not a member of the same unit as the accused is eligible to serve on general and special courts-martial for the trial of any enlisted member of an armed force who may lawfully be brought before such courts for trial, but he shall serve as a member of a court only if, before the conclusion of a session called by the military judge under section 839(a) of this title (article 39(a)) prior to trial or, in the absence of such a session, before the court is assembled for the trial of the accused, the accused personally has requested orally on the record or in writing that enlisted members serve on it____
(e) Before a court-martial is assembled for the trial of a case, the convening authority may excuse a member of the court from participating in the case____

10 U.S.C. § 825 In the absence of any assertion that the three enlisted members were actually members of the same unit as the appellant, we think the language of the statute fails to support the appellant’s contention because the statute plainly states that such members are eligible but shall only serve if requested.

In McClaughry v. Deming, the accused was an officer in the Volunteer Army who was tried and convicted by a court-martial composed entirely of members of the Regular Army A statute in effect at that time stated that officers of the Regular Army

[796]*796were not “competent to sit on courts-martial to try” officers of other forces. Despite the fact that Deming expressly stated at the time of trial that he had no objection to the membership of the court, the U.S. Supreme Court found that the Volunteer Army was another force within the meaning of the statute and stated:

[T]he court-martial that has jurisdiction over any offense must, in the first place, be legally created and convened____ The court has no continuous existence, but under the provisions of the statute it is called into being by the proper officer, who constitutes the court itself by the very act of appointing its members; and when in appointing such members he violates the statute, as in this case, by appointing men to compose the court that the statute says he shall not appoint, the body thus convened is not a legal court-martial, and has no jurisdiction over either the subject-matter of the charges against a volunteer officer or over the person of such officer____

186 U.S. at 64-65, 22 S.Ct. at 792-93.

In United States v. White, the U.S. Court of Military Appeals considered an earlier version of Article 25 which was essentially identical to the current version except the request for enlisted members had to be in writing vice being either written or oral. White made only a verbal request for enlisted members and, consistent with his verbal request, was actually tried and convicted by a panel that included enlisted members. In overturning White’s conviction and after quoting the “shall serve” language from Article 25, the Court stated:

The option [to request enlisted members] is a right of the defendant and a convening authority is without power to designate enlisted members to sit, absent the personal written request of the accused. Not even the accused’s counsel may act for him. Manifestly, Congress intended that the accused’s personal written request be an indispensable prerequisite to an enlisted man’s membership on a particular court. No other interpretation of the clear statutory language is reasonable.

21 U.S.C.M.A. at 588, 45 C.M.R. at 362. After stating that White’s situation was like that in McClaughry v. Deming, the Court went on to say:

[T]he attempt at the creation of a court failed because such attempt was a plain violation of the statute. The enlisted membership of this court could have been validly appointed only if the accused had personally requested their presence in writing. Since he did not, the convening authority was without statutory authority to designate them as members. In such circumstances, the court was without jurisdiction to proceed____

21 U.S.C.M.A. at 589, 42 C.M.R. at 363 (emphasis and citations omitted). While this broad (“is without the power to designate” and “could have been validly appointed only if”) language would seem to extend beyond the facts of White to encompass the situation of the appellant, there have been subsequent decisions by the Army Court of Military Review and by the Court of Military Appeals, itself, that indicate otherwise.

Shortly after White

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Bluebook (online)
35 M.J. 794, 1992 CMR LEXIS 653, 1992 WL 233610, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-berlingeri-usnmcmilrev-1992.