United States v. Simonds

I concur in part and dissent in part.

For the reasons set forth in my dissenting opinion in United States v Waldron, 15 USCMA 628, 36 CMR 126, I agree that the law officer did not err in refusing sua sponte to declare a mistrial. Here, as in the Waldron case, the question presented by the copy of the charges against the witness Moore was whether such affected the members concerned in giving the parties to the trial a fair hearing. This ordinarily calls for use of the challenging procedure and, as did the prosecution in Waldron, supra, the defense counsel failed to invoke the same. That, in my…