United States v. Rhea

33 M.J. 413, 1991 CMA LEXIS 1326, 1991 WL 213352
CourtUnited States Court of Military Appeals
DecidedSeptember 30, 1991
DocketNo. 64,457; ACM 27563
StatusPublished
Cited by20 cases

This text of 33 M.J. 413 (United States v. Rhea) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Court of Military Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Rhea, 33 M.J. 413, 1991 CMA LEXIS 1326, 1991 WL 213352 (cma 1991).

Opinion

Opinion of the Court

EVERETT, Senior Judge:

A general court-martial convicted appellant of rape, sodomy, assault and battery (2 specifications), committing indecent acts, and drunk and disorderly conduct, in violation of Articles 120, 125, 128, and 134, Uniform Code of Military Justice, 10 USC §§ 920, 925, 928, and 934, respectively. The court sentenced appellant to a bad-conduct discharge, confinement for 5 years, total forfeitures, and reduction to the lowest enlisted grade. The convening authority approved these results, and the Court of Military Review affirmed. 29 MJ 991 (1990).

On appellant’s petition, we granted review of four issues,1 two of which are [415]*415closely related and will be treated together. Although we decide the granted issues adversely to appellant, our review has revealed some additional matters that require remand to the court below.

I

A

When she was 20 years old, Rhea’s Thai stepdaughter, Youie, revealed that, from the time she was 13 years old, Rhea had sexually abused her, to include French kissing her and fondling her private areas, sexual intercourse, and fellatio.2 The abusive conduct came to light only after Rhea had caught Youie in bed at her boyfriend’s 3 apartment and had assaulted both of them in a fit of jealousy.

From the outset of these revelations, Rhea denied them outright. He did acknowledge that he disliked Youie’s boyfriend and that he had lost control when he saw them in bed together, but he denied all allegations of any sexual activity between himself and his stepdaughter.

Youie made her charges in October 1987. Shortly thereafter, Rhea was given the services of two military defense counsel. In late November, counsel suggested that Rhea bring to their office “ ‘any documents, letters, papers, books, those sort of things’ that his stepdaughter had left behind when she moved out that might explain her motive for making the allegations against him. They examined the materials and found nothing helpful to the case.” 29 MJ at 994. They put the box of items aside.

On January 8, 1988, during her testimony at the Article 324 hearing, Youie revealed — apparently for the first time to anyone — that, at some point, Rhea had given her a stereo on condition that she give him six “lovings.” Because she suspected that he might try to confuse her along the way as to how many “lovings” she had given him at any point, she had recorded each instance on a calendar in her room in Rhea’s apartment. When Youie was asked where the calendar was at that time, she responded: “I don’t know, the last time I saw it it was in my father’s house, some of my things are still there, I haven’t been able to get all of my things and move them around.”

Thus alerted to this potential gem of evidence, the Government immediately obtained an authorization to search Rhea’s residence for this calendar. The search was fruitless.

For their part, defense counsel, similarly alerted to the materiality of a calendar that they might have previously looked at with indifference, rummaged through the box of materials their client had given them. There, counsel found a calendar with notations on it — specifically, the calendar had “written in a block on one date, ‘stereo bought’ and the number 6 in a circle. Then it’s got a 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 on various dates over the next several weeks, which was consistent with her testimony of how she noted the times that her father made her have sex with him, or she had sex with him pursuant to this agreement about the stereo.”

Appropriately “concerned” that they had in their possession what appeared to be “evidence of a crime, or maybe even ‘fruits’ or ‘instrumentalities’ of a crime,” each de[416]*416fense counsel sought guidance from his state bar. “Both state organizations suggested that a ruling be sought from the trial judge as to whether disclosure was required. However, both implied that disclosure was probably necessary.” 29 MJ at 994.

Apparently so that the Government would not know of the calendar if the judge did not order disclosure, defense counsel requested an ex parte hearing before the military judge on March 4, which was conducted on the record. After learning of the events, the military judge synthesized the question before him to be counsel’s “ethical requirement to disclose evidence of a crime.” Thereupon, the military judge recessed the hearing to study the question over the weekend.

When the hearing reconvened, the military judge ordered counsel to turn the calendar over “to the trial counsel at the earliest possible time so as not to hinder his pretrial preparation. No recitation of the circumstances surrounding the defense’s acquisition is necessary, other than that the calendar had come into the defense’s possession.” Although rather lengthy, it is helpful at this point to recite fully the military judge’s rationale for his order as follows:

With regard to the issue of whether or not an item of evidence within the possession of defense counsel must be disclosed to the prosecution, I cite the Air Force Regulation 111-1, Attachment 2, dated 1 August 1984, which is the Rules for Trial Courts. And it provides in the Preamble that, “Counsel, as officers of the court, have an ethical obligation and are expected to be familiar with and to comply with the American Bar Association Code of Professional Responsibility, the American Bar Association Standards for Criminal Justice, the Manual for Courts-Martial and military case law, or applicable Department of the Air Force Regulations.” And the ethical issues presented will be viewed applying the law as contained in the cited authorities. And the issue is, does the defense counsel have an ethical or legal obligation to produce the annotated calendar of Youie Rhea that is in their custody?
Now, Disciplinary Rule 7-109(a) of the Amerian Bar Association Model Code of Professional Responsibility provides that, “A lawyer shall not suppress any evidence that he or his client has a legal obligation to produce.” Similarly, the American Bar Association Standards for Criminal Justice in the Second Edition, Volume II, Chapter 11, entitled, “Discovery and Procedure Before Trial,” at Section 11-4.1, provides, “Neither counsel for the parties nor other prosecution or defense personnel shall impede opposing counsel’s investigation of the case.” Finally, Rule for Courts-Martial 701(e) provides, “Each party shall have equal opportunity to interview witnesses and inspect evidence, and no party may unreasonably impede the access of another party to a witness or evidence.” The only exception to this is if the evidence is protected from disclosure by the Military Rules of Evidence or if such is the work product of counsel or his assistants. Now, one of the questions arising there under the Rule for Courts-Martial 701 is, does the calendar, as referred to by Youie Rhea in her cross-examination at the Article 32 investigation, constitute a confidential communication that might be privileged against disclosure under the Military Rules of Evidence 502, and Canon 4 of the ABA Code of Professional Responsibility, and I think the answer to this is no.

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Bluebook (online)
33 M.J. 413, 1991 CMA LEXIS 1326, 1991 WL 213352, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-rhea-cma-1991.