Court Martial Bloopers Part 5 - Law Office of Jocelyn C. Stewart

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Court martial bloopers, part five. When I was on deck to become a prosecutor, I was in Germany, I was in the legal assistance office which was in the same building with the courtroom. I decided I heard that there was going to be this guilty plea, and I figured it would be good to sit in and see. Understand that in the military, when somebody pleads guilty, they have to go through a pretty detailed allocution of what happened, like factually what happened, what they did, and why they believe that it matches with the elements and definitions for that particular offense. This is known as the Care Inquiry from a case called United States versus Care. There was a concern because it was real that commanders were kind of ordering their troops to plead guilty.
And so in the civilian world, you can go in and just say, yes, I plead guilty, I understand my rights, and now I'm giving him my right to a trial. I pleaded guilty. And it takes like three minutes. It's really fast. And they don't have to explain anything. Not true in the military, sometimes it's called the Providence inquiry. If you're really old school, you call it the care inquiry. So I'm sitting here I was gosh, I was probably like 25 super green, but excited to learn and just wanted to see this. One of the things that really struck me at first was that I knew that nobody in the courtroom is supposed to actually have a weapon unless the military judge has approved it. And I could tell that there was like a plain closed cop and I could tell that he had a weapon.
I'm like, what's going on here? So I started listening to this proceeding, and the judge was a very proper female judge Colonel Denise Lind, and I still remember the prosecutors Carl the Truth Hill and Marvin McBuroughs, and the defense attorney was Brian Rush. Wow. I remember all that. So the accused was pleading guilty to assaultingmilitary police spitting on Air Force securities forces. He basically had gotten super drunk, so he was also pleading guilty to a violation of a lawful order to not consume alcohol. And he was also pleading guilty to these assaults. And like he got super drunk and was like literally all over the cell.And it was like disrespect to superior commission officer disrespect to NCO. And so he starts explaining what he's done. He's got this very thick New York accent, like super thick. And so the judge is having to read naughty words, right? Like the naughty words that he was calling his first sergeant and his commander. He had called them number one and number two.
And during the course of him pleading guilty, the judge apparently referred to the commander as number one and the first sergeant as number two. And this guy interrupts me. He is like, no, no, no, no. He's like, the first sergeant is a bigger b*cth. And like, this is why. And starts explaining and it. The combination of hearing the judge say naughty words and this guy going like, he's the most prominent person I've ever heard in my life. Like this record of trial went around in the world in 80 days. It was the funniest thing I've ever seen. And so then the judge was trying to make sure there's this issue of volition and voluntariness about when he's taking these drinks. And so she's trying to drill down on does he really understand, did he really understand when he was consuming these drinks that he had in his mind this order not to drink.
And the judge is asking these kinds of questions and she's kind of not being as fluid as maybe she could be. And he interrupts her and he is like, ma'am, because she's like, what were you thinking when you took that first drink? I was thinking, that, if I want to take a drink, I can take a drink and number one and number two. And oh my stars, this is all like in the middle of a court proceeding. And I'm covering my mouth. And Marvin McBuroughs one of the funniest people I know, he's like turning around and he's looking at me like, are you hearing this? Are we all... Is this happening like this? Oh my gosh. So then his attorney is actively trying to get him to simmer down as, because he's getting agitated.
He's getting agitated and the plain clothes cop in the back is on high alert. He's so excited for the idea that he might actually be able to do something to this guy. And I got the giggles and then I'm like, oh my gosh, this guy's going to think that I'm laughing at him and he's going to attack me. And I'm just like, I don't even know what to do. Hearing the dirty words, hearing Colonel Lynn read out loud the dirty words and then asking him about it and going through this very formal process. I don't know if you guys thought it was funny, but I sure did.
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Jocelyn Stewart is a UCMJ court-martial attorney who specializes in defense of allegations of sexual assault for all branches of the military worldwide.
Contact the Law Office of Jocelyn C. Stewart at ucmj-defender.com

[@johnlozauskas778]

Since there is an 8 yo boy trapped in my body, I thought your rendering was hysterical!

[@MessyMilitaryLawyer]

LOL