The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces ruled on June 29, 2023, that unanimous verdicts are unnecessary for criminal convictions in court-martial trials. (U.S. Air Force)
The U.S. military’s top appeals court has ruled that unanimous verdicts are unnecessary for criminal convictions, marking the latest twist in a flurry of cases that challenge the long-standing acceptance of split jury verdicts at courts-martial.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces on Thursday rejected the claim of an airman seeking to have his 2020 conviction on charges of attempted sexual abuse tossed out.
Lawyers for Master Sgt. Anthony Anderson argued that he has a constitutional right to unanimous verdict by a military jury.
The ruling upheld the Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals’ finding that provisions of the Constitution related to due process, equal protection and unanimous jury verdicts don’t invalidate split verdicts in military courts.
“Nonunanimous verdicts have been a feature of American courts-martial since the founding of our nation’s military justice system,” the highest military appellate court wrote in its 5-0 decision.
The Uniform Code of Military Justice “expressly authorizes” conviction with at least three-fourths of the jury members present when the vote is taken, the court said.
Anderson was convicted on two specifications of attempted sexual abuse of a child during a court-martial at Ramstein Air Base in Germany.
The charges stemmed from online communications he had with a fictitious 13-year-old girl.
Anderson was sentenced to 12 months in prison, demotion to E-1 and a dishonorable discharge.
In deciding Anderson’s case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces reinforced a position recently taken by other military tribunals, including the Army Court of Criminal Appeals.
In June 2022, the Army court rejected a trial judge’s ruling that a unanimous verdict was required to convict Lt. Col. Andrew Dial, who was charged with sexual assault.
Col. Charles Pritchard, an Army judge in Kaiserslautern, Germany, sided with the defense in saying that allowing a split verdict would violate Dial’s constitutional rights.
Prosecutors challenged the ruling, arguing that it was based on faulty reasoning. The Army appeals court concurred with that view.
A factor in Pritchard’s decision was an April 2020 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that banned nonunanimous verdicts in state criminal cases. Oregon was the last state to allow split jury verdicts.
The 6-3 decision in Ramos v. Louisiana said state courts are also bound by the long-standing requirement in federal courts that all jurors must be in agreement for a defendant to be convicted.
But the Supreme Court decision made no mention of the applicable standard in military courts. Civilian judges have repeatedly found that the Constitution gives Congress power to “make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces.”
Those rulings treated the military justice system as a congressional matter, so courts previously held that some protections for civilian defendants don’t apply to service members.
However, Ramos v. Louisiana led to a series of challenges by military defense lawyers looking to have aspects of the ruling applied within the UCMJ.
