United States v. Meadows

42 M.J. 132, 42 N.J. 132, 1995 CAAF LEXIS 61, 1995 WL 352796
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Armed Forces
DecidedJune 12, 1995
DocketNo. 93-1334; CMR No. 29778
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 42 M.J. 132 (United States v. Meadows) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Meadows, 42 M.J. 132, 42 N.J. 132, 1995 CAAF LEXIS 61, 1995 WL 352796 (Ark. 1995).

Opinion

Opinion of the Court

WISS, Judge:

1. At a general court-martial convened at Royal Air Force Mildenhall, United Kingdom, appellant pleaded not guilty to charges that he had stolen $1,600.00 from the United States; that he had tried to impede an investigation by threatening a witness; and that he had solicited yet another witness to make a false official statement. See Arts. 121 and 134, Uniform Code of Military Justice, 10 USC §§ 921 and 934, respectively. Ultimately, the members found appellant not guilty of threatening a witness but convicted him of the remaining charges and sentenced him to a bad-conduct discharge, confinement for 6 months, a fine of $3,200.00, and reduction to the lowest enlisted grade. The convening authority approved these results, and the Court of Military Review1 affirmed them in an unpublished opinion.

2. On appellant’s petition, this Court granted review of the following issue:

WHETHER THE GOVERNMENT’S USE AT TRIAL OF A LEASE AGREEMENT WHICH DIFFERED FROM THAT WHICH HAD BEEN OFFERED DURING THE ARTICLE 32[, UCMJ, 10 USC § 832] INVESTIGATION UNFAIRLY MISLED THE DEFENSE AND THEREBY DENIED APPELLANT A FAIR OPPORTUNITY TO PRESENT A DEFENSE.

Now, after full consideration of the arguments and the record, we are convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that any latent error in trial counsel’s not providing the defense with the version of the lease agreement that the prosecution offered into evidence at trial did not affect the results of the case. See United States v. Green, 37 MJ 88 (CMA 1993);2 see also United States v. Bagley, 473 U.S. 667, 105 S.Ct. 3375, 87 L.Ed.2d 481 (1985).

I

3. In September 1990, appellant met Wendy Watson, a widow with 3 children who lived at 12 Adeane Meadow in Mundford, England. The two dated steadily over the next several months; in fact, in October, appellant began spending up to three nights a week with Ms. Watson at her home.

4. In December appellant proposed to Ms. Watson, and the relationship continued to blossom: Appellant still spent several nights a week with Ms. Watson (between three and five nights, depending upon whose testimony is believed); he participated to some extent in her family’s activities; they commingled funds even to the point of jointly buying a German car and bringing it back to England; and they made plans for eventual travel of the five of them to the United States once the couple married.

5. The storytale eventually ended, however, when Ms. Watson learned in June 1991 that appellant had been spending time with Wendy Nutt—the mother of appellant’s two children—on the nights when he was not with her. Ms. Watson testified that appel[134]*134lant had told her that, on those nights, he stayed in a dorm room that he was able to use because he knew the dorm manager.

6. In the meantime, appellant had hit a financial bump in the road in December 1990. He and another servicemember jointly owned a house in Lakenheath; but the latter moved pursuant to permanent-change-of-station orders in December, and he left under circumstances in which it was clear that he would send no more mortgage money to appellant.

7. Unable to make the payments himself, appellant decided to rent the house out. Ultimately, in January 1991, he did so to a couple named Wiekam for a monthly rental of £325. The lease agreement listed Ms. Watson as landlord in order to facilitate her collection of the rent on appellant’s behalf if ever necessary. In fact, Ms. Watson apparently did collect the rent herself one month and receipted for the rent on that occasion as well as one other.

8. Also in January, appellant signed a fill-in-the-blanks tenancy agreement to rent Ms. Watson’s house at 12 Adeane Meadow, Mundford. Under the terms of that agreement, appellant was to pay Ms. Watson £325 per month for a period of 6 months, and the agreement recited that a security deposit of £325 had changed hands. Although the agreement provided (¶ 1.0) that “[t]he Landlord lets and the Tenant takes the property” on the 17th of January, Ms. Watson and her children continued to live in the house.

9. One other critical event occurred that month. On January 22, 1991, appellant executed a form by which he requested payment from the United States of Overseas Housing Allowance (OHA). OHA is offered to servieemembers stationed overseas who do not live in base housing in order to subsidize the cost of their housing in the local community. On that form, appellant indicated that his address was “12 Adeane Meadow, Mundford,” and that he “LEASED/RENTED” the premises for the monthly amount of £325. He indicated also that he paid for water or sewer and that no one else lived there who paid any “PORTION OF THE RENT, MORTGAGE, AND/OR UTILITIES.”

10. At trial, Ms. Watson testified that, in fact, appellant never paid her any rent, any of the utilities, or the security deposit. Rather, she indicated, appellant stayed there several nights a week (and, in fact, apparently had moved in some belongings in January) simply incident to their growing relationship. She stated that she had signed the lease with appellant because the latter had indicated to her that he needed an address for roster purposes if he were to deploy under Operation Desert Shield. She denied having any knowledge at all that appellant had submitted claims for OHA until June 1991; when she did learn that appellant apparently had used her to get money to which he was not entitled, she reported him to American military authorities.

11. For his part, appellant swore that his lease arrangement with Ms. Watson was bona fide and that his request for OHA equally was on the up-and-up. He stated that their understanding was that she would “invest” the monthly rental of £325 in his house in Lakenheath because that was to become their common property once married. He theorized that his arrangement was no different from one in which he literally would hand Ms. Watson the rental money and she, in turn, would hand the same money back to him as an investment in his house— although she would be free at any time to not return the money, since it would be hers to do with as she pleased. He suggested that Ms. Watson’s motivation to report him and to testify as she did rested, first, on her status as a woman scorned and, second, on the risk that she would be required to return previously paid government pensions and entitlements and that future payments would not be made if the social security administration learned the true nature of her lease agreement with appellant.

12. The lease agreement for the rental of Ms. Watson’s house, which underpinned appellant’s claim for OHA, was offered and admitted as prosecution exhibit (pros, ex.) 2 during the testimony of Ms. Watson. Indisputably, it is signed by both appellant and [135]*135Ms. Watson. Who filled in the various blanks in the agreement—including the amount of rental—however, was in dispute.3 The following exchange occurred during cross-examination of Ms. Watson by defense counsel:

Q. And, there were a lot of blanks on both of those forms [the 5-page agreement and two more pages of property inventory] that had to be filled in?
A. Yes.
Q. And ma’am, you are the person who actually filled in each and every one of those blanks except for Sergeant Meadows’ signature, correct?
A. Yes.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
42 M.J. 132, 42 N.J. 132, 1995 CAAF LEXIS 61, 1995 WL 352796, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-meadows-armfor-1995.