United States v. Marine

The challenged instructions do not authorize punishment in excess of that allowed by law, either directly or indirectly. They expressly limit the punishment for the several acts to the legal maximum for a single offense. To that extent they are unimpeachable. The narrow question then is whether it is illegal to allow the court members to consider, as an aggravating circumstance, the fact that the accused’s offense was composed of several misdeeds. Multiple acts of misconduct committed over a period of time may be charged as a single offense. See United States v Aloyian, 16 USCMA 333, 36 CMR…