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CAAFlog

Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces

6/11/2025

2 Comments

 

United States v. Taylor

The Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and the Rules for Courts-Martial (R.C.M.) impose various limitations on trying reservists by court-martial. One limitation, states: “A member of a reserve component must be on active duty prior to arraignment at a general or special court-martial.” Appellant argues that his court-martial violated R.C.M. 204(b)(1) because he is a reservist who was not on active duty at the time of his arraignment and trial. The Government responds that the Air Force had properly ordered Appellant to active duty under Article 2(d)(1), UCMJ, 10 U.S.C. § 802(d)(1) (2018), which provides in relevant part that a “member of a reserve component . . . may be ordered to active duty involuntarily for the purpose of . . . trial by courtmartial.” We hold, however, that Article 2(d)(2), UCMJ, ​did not authorize ordering Appellant to active duty for trial by court-martial because Appellant was not “on active duty” or “inactive-duty training” at the time of the charged offenses, as the provision requires. Accordingly, we set aside the decision of the United States Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals (AFCCA), which affirmed the findings and sentence in this case. We further set aside the findings and the sentence.
Sort of "cleaned up" or "citation modified" or ???

The Government offered three reasons why the Appellant loses on the issue.

First, the Government argues, in essence, that any dispute about the meaning of Article 2(d), UCMJ, is moot.

Second, the Government argues that Appellant expressly waived any objection to his order to active duty[.]

Appellant at the very least forfeited his argument based on R.C.M. 905(e)[.]

Each is quite interesting, but
For simplicity, we will assume, without deciding, that an accused may forfeit objections to compliance with R.C.M. 204(b)(1) and Article 2(d)(2), UCMJ, and that Appellant forfeited them in this case. Based on these assumptions, we will review the granted issue only for plain error. These assumptions will not prejudice Appellant because we ultimately hold, for reasons explained below, that Appellant has demonstrated plain error and that the findings and sentence must be set aside.
The Court reviewed the statutory interpretations de novo, relying on United States v. St. Blanc, 70 M.J. 424, 427 (C.A.A.F. 2012). And
the plain language of Article 2(d)(2), UCMJ. Article 2(d)(2), UCMJ, precludes the involuntary ordering of a reservist to active duty for the purpose of trial by court-martial for offenses that did not occur when the reservist was on active duty or performing inactive-duty training. Congress could amend Article 2(d)(2), UCMJ, to cover intervals between two periods of inactive-duty training, but the current language of the statute does not include such periods.
The Court rejects several of Appellee's arguments on the interpretation.

The Court is unpersuaded that "the term “inactive-duty training” should be interpreted to include the interval between two periods of inactive-duty training[,]
because we fail to see any ambiguity in the word “and” in Article 2(a)(3)(A), UCMJ. In addition, Article 2(a)(3)(B), UCMJ, draws a clear distinction between “inactive-duty training” and “intervals between inactive-duty training” because it uses the terms separately in both subparagraph (B)(ii) and subparagraph (B)(iii). The Government, furthermore, offers no explanation for how to reconcile the definition of “inactive-duty training” in 10 U.S.C. § 101(d)(7), which applies to all of title 10 of the United States Code, with its theory that Congress used Article 2(a)(3)[.]
The Court rejects application of the absurdity doctrine
​that following the plain language of Article 2(d), UCMJ, would lead to the absurd result of Congress expanding court-martial jurisdiction under Article 2(a)(3), UCMJ, to include intervals between periods of inactive-duty training but then providing the Government only very limited means for effectuating that new jurisdiction due to the limitation in Article 2(d)(2), UCMJ.
. . .
The absurdity doctrine allows a court to depart from the plain language of a statute only in very limited circumstances. [The doctrine is] “ ‘a departure from the letter of the law’ may be justified to avoid an absurd result if ‘the absurdity . . . is so gross as to shock the general moral or common sense.’ ” We hold that the plain reading of Article 2(d), UCMJ, does not lead to a result that is so shocking to the general moral or common sense that it qualifies as absurd. Congress clearly recognized that reservists at times commit offenses on the Saturday night during the interval between their Saturday and Sunday inactive-duty training. Congress made progress in addressing this situation by amending Article 2(a)(3), UCMJ, so that reservists are subject to the UCMJ during this period. Congress, however, has not yet completely solved the problem of authorizing the calling of such reservists to active duty to stand trial. This is not an absurd result
Sort of "cleaned up" or "citation modified" or ??? 

Huuum, what did the civilian authorities do about the allegations--seems the local prosecutor would have jurisdiction over alleged sexual assaults in a civilian off-base home? The alleged victim "awoke around 4:00 a.m. on Sunday morning to find Appellant touching and kissing her. She testified that she felt Appellant’s lips upon her buttocks and his fingers in her vulva. She further testified that she had never indicated to Appellant that he could perform these acts."
2 Comments
Cloudesley Shovell
6/11/2025 10:23:20

Excellent opinion. My personal opinion is perhaps swayed by the fact that I've been tilting against jurisdictional windmills for a very long time, and I'm very happy to see the CAAF take these issues seriously and strictly construe jurisdiction.

Kind regards,
CS

Reply
A Random Prosecutor
6/13/2025 00:29:07

I disagree with the part of the opinion that this isn't an absurd result, but even so, I have no issues with CAAF strictly construing jurisdiction. If you're going to allow Congress to broadly expand the reach of courtts-martial, forcing them to do it right makes sense.

Reply



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