Worried That Your Article 120, UCMJ (Sexual Assault ) Accuser is Going to Lie or Not Remember? Part 1

As a military defense attorney who frequently takes cases to contested courts-martial and is trained in the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) it is critical that you hire a military defense attorney who can effectively impeach your sexual assault accuser.

Your military defense attorney must know the evidentiary foundations necessary to impeach an Article 120, UCMJ (Sexual Assault) accuser.  There are multiple Military Rules Of Evidence and impeachment techniques that will have to be utilized at your Article 120, UCMJ (Sexual Assault) court martial in order to be successful. It is important to know that even the slightest deviation from the proper technique that the Military Rule Of Evidence calls for may allow the military court-martial judge to exclude the evidence.  Even when the Military Rule Of Evidence is satisfied and the foundational requirements are met, the military judge can still exclude the impeachment evidence under Military Rule of Evidence 403.  For example, the military court-marital judge may determine that otherwise admissible impeachment evidence is too prejudicial because the military defense attorney did not properly articulate its relevancy on the record to the court.  Over the next few blog posts we are going to discuss the different ways that a military defense attorney can attack an Article 120, UCMJ (Sexual Assault) accuser’s credibility.