United States v. Walker

We have examined the record of trial, the assignment of error, and the Government’s reply thereto and have concluded that the findings and sentence are correct in law and fact and that no error materially prejudicial to the substantial rights of the appellant was committed.

The military judge’s thirty-day authorized leave is not the brief absence contemplated by R.C.M. 1104(a)(2)(B) so that it was necessary to delay the post-trial proceedings until the military judge returned to authenticate the record. Rather this was a patently prolonged absence which triggers substitute authentication…