United States v. Lucas

Opinion of the Court

As in United States v Bell, 19 USCMA 167, 41 CMR 167, the data as to pretrial restraint presented to the court-martial during the sentence proceedings indicates the nature of the restraint pending trial was changed from restriction to confinement. We pointed out in Bell that an increase of this kind can reasonably be attributed to some act of misconduct committed by the accused in the interim period and, therefore, requires that the court members be instructed not to draw any such inference and not to consider the increase in the form of restraint as evidence of…