2017 (October Term)
United States v. Gray, 77 M.J. 5 (CAAF lacks jurisdiction to entertain a request for coram nobis in a case that is final in all respects under the UCMJ; there is no statutory authority to provide extraordinary relief for a capital case that is final for all purposes under the UCMJ).
(appellant is not entitled to a writ of coram nobis where he has a remedy other than coram nobis to rectify the consequences of the alleged errors, namely a writ of habeas corpus in the Article III courts; an extraordinary remedy such as coram nobis may not issue when alternative remedies, such as habeas corpus, are available; moreover, where appellant is still in confinement, coram nobis relief is unavailable).
2008 (Transition)Denedo
v. United States, 66 M.J. 114 (under the
exhaustion of remedies doctrine,
courts outside the military justice system normally refrain from
collateral
review of courts-martial until all available military remedies are
exhausted).
(as a general matter, courts
outside the
military justice system will not entertain habeas petitions by military
prisoners until all available military remedies have been exhausted;
however,
the exhaustion requirement is prudential rather than jurisdictional;
the
circumstances of a particular case might warrant consideration of a
habeas
petition by an Article
(even when remedies have been
exhausted, the
scope of collateral review outside the military justice system is
constrained
by the requirement to consider whether the military justice system has
given
full and fair consideration to the claims at issue; de novo review is
appropriate only if the military justice system manifestly refused to
consider
those claims).
(a writ of error coram nobis
should be brought
before the court that rendered the judgment).
(in the military justice
system, the trial
court - the court-martial - does not have independent jurisdiction over
a case
after the military judge authenticates the record and the convening
authority
forwards the record after taking action; because the trial court is not
available for collateral review under the UCMJ or the MCM, collateral
review
within the military justice system does not occur at the trial court
level).
(the courts of criminal appeals, the
first-level standing courts in the military justice system, provide an
appropriate forum for consideration of coram nobis petitions regarding
courts-martial; during the initial consideration of a case, they engage
in de
novo consideration of the record and expressly act on the findings and
sentence; with respect to collateral review of the present case, they
are
well-positioned to determine whether corrective action on the findings
and
sentence is warranted, including ordering any factfinding proceedings
that may
be necessary).
(the court of criminal appeals
is an
appropriate forum to receive and consider a writ of coram nobis that
involves a
collateral challenge to that court’s approval of the findings and
sentence in a
court-martial, where the court-martial that convicted appellant had
jurisdiction over both the person and the offense and the court of
criminal
appeals had jurisdiction to review and approve the findings and
sentence on
direct review).
United
States v. Davis, 63 M.J. 171 (Article 62(a)(1), UCMJ, gives the
government
a right to appeal certain decisions from a court-martial in which a
military
judge presides and in which a punitive discharge may be adjudged; even
though
appellant had not been sentenced to a punitive discharge at his
original trial,
the government could properly appeal a military judge’s decision at a
sentencing rehearing under Article 62, UCMJ, because that rehearing was
empowered to adjudge any sentence authorized for the underlying
offenses
regardless of the sentence approved after the original trial, and a
punitive
dismissal was such an authorized punishment).