United States v. Thompson

I sympathize with the objective of the majority opinion, but I cannot agree with its reasoning. The majority opinion focuses on a small portion of the sentencing argument made by trial counsel and concludes that it was an unjustified interjection of race into the trial proceeding. The opinion ultimately assumes that the argument was plain error necessitating corrective action in the form of a rehearing on sentence. The opinion concedes, however, that the improper argument could have been cured by a comment from the military judge during trial. Thus, the real issue in this case is not the…