CORE CRIMINAL LAW SUBJECTS: Crimes: Article 91 -
Insubordinate Conduct Toward Warrant Officer,
Noncommissioned Officer, or Petty Officer
2008 (September Term)
United
States v. Ranney, 67 M.J. 297 (Article 91,
UCMJ, like Article 90, UCMJ,
makes punishable disobedience only of lawful commands).
(an order is presumed to be
lawful, and the
accused bears the burden of rebutting the presumption; nevertheless, an
order
purporting to regulate personal affairs is not lawful unless it has a
military
purpose).
(an order requiring appellant
to cease his unprofessional relationship with a
female Marine in the same multi-service detachment had a legally
sufficient
nexus to the military duty of maintaining the discipline and morale of
the
detachment to be presumptively lawful; the NCO who issued the order
testified
that he believed that the relationship would compromise the ability of
the
detachment’s NCOs to enforce various restrictions placed on junior
Marine
enlisted members and that although the relationship had not yet caused
any
specific problems within the unit, he believed it had the potential to
become a
problem over time; in the absence of any evidence that the order was in
fact
issued for a private end, and with a sufficient nexus between the
mandate and a
stated military duty – good order and discipline - extant in the
record, the presumption
that the order was lawful remained intact).