United States v. Johnson

2 M.J. 600, 1976 CMR LEXIS 660
CourtU.S. Navy-Marine Corps Court of Military Review
DecidedNovember 30, 1976
DocketNCM 76 1931
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 2 M.J. 600 (United States v. Johnson) 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. Johnson, 2 M.J. 600, 1976 CMR LEXIS 660 (usnmcmilrev 1976).

Opinions

BAUM, Judge:

Appellant stands convicted by special court-martial of numerous specifications under Articles 86 and 91, UCMJ, 10 U.S.C. §§ 886, 891 to which he pleaded guilty pursuant to a pretrial agreement. As the case reaches us, appellant’s sentence consists of a bad conduct discharge, two months confinement at hard labor, forfeiture of $50 pay per month for two months and reduction in rate to E-l, with the bad conduct discharge suspended pursuant to the pretrial agreement and, additionally, all confinement in excess of 24 days suspended for the period of confinement and six months. Appellant’s assignment of errors to the effect that two specifications fail to state offenses and that a third is improvident are without merit. There is another matter not noted by appellant, however, that must be addressed.

Having just recently been assigned to the bench, this case is the first in which I have been confronted with a pretrial agreement containing a provision as follows:

“That I understand that the convening authority will not be bound by the terms of this agreement should I engage, after the date this agreement is signed, but before the action of the convening authority, in any misconduct amounting to a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, or state or federal criminal law. Should such misconduct occur and be evidenced by official records of misconduct, the convening authority may take his action on this case without being bound by the provisions of this agreement.”

Previous decisions by the U. S. Navy Court of Military Review have found paragraphs similar to this one to be legal, proper, and not contrary to public policy. United States v. Bigler, 50 C.M.R. 818 (N.C.M.R. 1975); United States v. Nolan, 50 C.M.R. 360 (N.C.M.R. 1975); United States v. May, 49 C.M.R. 863 (N.C.M.R. 1974); United States v. Scott, No. 73 2553 (N.C.M.R. 22 April 1974); and United States v. Hammonds, No. 74 0740 (N.C.M.R. 11 April 1974). The U. S. Army Court of Military Review also affirmed such pretrial agreement terms in United States v. Goode, 49 C.M.R. 292 (A.C.M.R. 1974). It could be argued that upon review of the Army Court’s action the U. S. Court of Military Appeals, in United States v. Goode, 23 U.S.C.M.A. 367, 50 C.M.R. 1, 1 M.J. 3 (1975) by quoting the pretrial agreement provision in the opinion and by seeming to accept the fact that a convening authority could depart from the sentencing terms agreed upon, affirmed the validity of such provisions. It should be noted, however, that the Court in that case was confronted by specific certified issues from the Judge Advocate General of the Army, which related to the question of providing a hearing for the accused before acting on the sentence and not specifically to the question of the legality of the pretrial agreement. Certainly, if the Court of Military Appeals intended to approve such a provision it was a departure from previous expressions by it that pretrial agreements should be limited to pleas of guilty for a stated approved sentence. In United States v. Cummings, 17 U.S.C.M.A. 376, 380, 38 C.M.R. 174, 178 (1968), the author of the majority opinion in Goode stated “We reit[602]*602erate our belief that pretrial agreements are properly limited to the exchange of a plea of guilty for approval of a stated maximum sentence.” The same judge reasserted this principle seven days after Goode in United States v. Schmeltz, 23 U.S.C.M.A. 377, 379, 50 C.M.R. 83, 85,1 M.J. 8,11 (1975) by stating “This Court has never expressed full satisfaction with the practice of plea bargaining in the armed services. It has, however, repeatedly stated that pretrial agreements should concern themselves only with bargaining on the charges and sentence.” Furthermore in United States v. Holland, 23 U.S.C.M.A. 442, 443, 50 C.M.R. 461, 462,1 M.J. 58, 59 (1975), authored by a judge who concurred in Goode, it was stated, again, after Goode, that, “On many occasions, petitions have been reviewed by this Court in which a guilty plea was entered pursuant to a pretrial agreement. Our approval of these arrangements in subsequent opinions, however, was not intended either to condone or to permit the inclusion of indiscriminate conditions in such agreements, even when initiated or concurred in by the accused. Moreover, this reservation is sustained by other opinions of this Court that prove the contrary. Indeed, the many and varied schemes that have been employed in disposing of charges by way of the guilty plea route have demanded our continued scrutiny of the plea bargaining process.” In light of these clear cut pronouncements it seems that if the Court of Military Appeals was, in fact, passing on the legality of a pretrial agreement provision permitting the convening authority to void the sentencing terms upon subsequent misconduct of the accused, it certainly would have spelled out the reasons for the provision’s validity after giving it careful scrutiny. Such does not appear in Goode. No clue is given in that case as to the rationale supporting a “no misconduct” provision. Since the Army Court of Military Review was reversed, albeit on other grounds, Goode provides a very weak foundation, indeed, for the proposition that terms such as the one in the instant pretrial agreement are acceptable to the U. S. Court of Military Appeals. We must look then to Army and Navy decisions for the solid underpinning necessary to support such agreements. In so doing, I must disagree with the views previously expressed on this matter by my brothers on this Court and in the Army.

In United States v. May, supra, Judge Williams finds such a provision valid after synthesizing and then applying a rule concerning pretrial agreement provisions which require more of an accused than his guilty plea. That rule, as phrased by Judge Williams, is that a provision requiring more of an accused than his guilty plea is invalid only if it is “against public policy”, is “repugnant to civilized sensibilities” or requires the accused to forego “statutory or constitutional rights.” He found terms voiding the sentence portion of the pretrial agreement, upon the accused’s commission of an act of misconduct, not in conflict with these criteria. Assuming, without deciding, the correctness of the rule announced in that case, I would apply it to the instant provision and find it requires declaring such a provision void. It is both repugnant to civilized sensibilities and against public policy to permit a convening authority to renounce a promise with respect to a sentence, after the accused pleads guilty in reliance on that promise. Misconduct committed after the accused pleads and is found guilty can be punished by separate, independent action and should, in my view, be irrelevant with respect to the convening authority’s agreed action on the sentence. As stated in United States v. Cox, 22 U.S.C.M.A. 69, 71, 46 C.M.R. 69, 71 (1972):

“In the pretrial negotiations, the convening authority occupies a strong bargaining position. Frequently the convening authority’s motive for consummation of the deal is a grant of clemency. However, the convening authority, as a bargainer, also benefits from such an agreement by his command not having to conduct a contested court-martial. The bargaining street is two way, not one way.”1

[603]

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

United States v. Dawson
10 M.J. 142 (United States Court of Military Appeals, 1981)
United States v. Connell
9 M.J. 758 (U.S. Navy-Marine Corps Court of Military Review, 1980)
uNITED States v. D'Aiello
5 M.J. 681 (U.S. Navy-Marine Corps Court of Military Review, 1978)
United States v. Alvarez
5 M.J. 756 (U.S. Army Court of Military Review, 1978)
United States v. French
5 M.J. 649 (U.S. Navy-Marine Corps Court of Military Review, 1978)
United States v. Jacox
5 M.J. 531 (U.S. Navy-Marine Corps Court of Military Review, 1978)
United States v. Bloom
4 M.J. 794 (U.S. Navy-Marine Corps Court of Military Review, 1978)
United States v. Rankin
3 M.J. 1043 (U.S. Navy-Marine Corps Court of Military Review, 1977)
United States v. Pryor
3 M.J. 737 (U.S. Navy-Marine Corps Court of Military Review, 1977)
United States v. Neal
3 M.J. 593 (U.S. Navy-Marine Corps Court of Military Review, 1977)
United States v. Dugger
1 M.J. 1069 (U.S. Navy-Marine Corps Court of Military Review, 1976)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
2 M.J. 600, 1976 CMR LEXIS 660, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-johnson-usnmcmilrev-1976.