United States v. Cozad

BAUM, Senior Judge:

Appellant has assigned two errors before this Court: (1) That the appellant was improperly tried and convicted in absentia by a court-martial before which he had never been arraigned; (2) that the record is -not a verbatim record in that portions of undeterminable importance to the proceedings have been deleted from the record. We find merit in both assignments. Based on the first, we must reverse.

Paragraph lie, Manual for Courts-Martial, United States, 1969 (Revised edition) permits trial of an accused in his absence, if it is voluntary and unauthorized, and if it is…