86 - United States v. Caswell and Public Trials

Send us Fan MailIn this episode we discuss United States v. Caswell, where the Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals declined to follow the bench book and CAAF precedent, because it found that by moving the offense of unlawful possession of a concealed dangerous weapon from Article 134 to Article 114, the nature of the offense changed to put more onus on the unlawfulness element.  Therefore, it declined to apply the "permissive inference" that previously allowed the factfinder to infer unlawfulness based solely on evidence the weapon was concealed.  We then shift gears and talk about an upcoming CAAF case (United States v. Miller) on the issue of whether the automatic closure of an MRE 412 hearing is unconstitutional.