United States v. Cunningham

By focusing solely on the military status of the person who prepared the staff judge advocate’s (SJA) recommendation, instead of the content of the recommendation, the majority perpetuates the fundamental flaw of *765the Smith decision. In the Smith Court’s view, an otherwise correctly prepared recommendation (presumably even one that recommends action favorable to the accused), and to which counsel for the accused had no objection, invalidates the action of the convening authority if the person who signed the recommendation was not a commissioned officer.

This Court has previously held that an…