United States v. Smith

OPINION OF THE COURT

LEONARD, Senior Judge:

This case came to us with no errors assigned. During our independent review of the record, we found one matter warranting comment. The staff judge advocate's pretrial advice was over seven pages long and his post-trial recommendations were six pages long. The pretrial advice was obviously patterned on the type of pretrial advice required by the 1969 Manual for Courts-Martial. It contained summaries of the evidence, a two-page discussion of the elements of the offenses, comments on the form of the charges, discussions of possible defenses, discussion…