United States v. Kirkland

Airman First Class Jesse Kirkland (defendant) was an E-3 who was facing a general court-martial. Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), the court-martial’s panel of members could be servicemembers with a rank equal to or greater than Kirkland’s E-3 rank, and Kirkland requested that enlisted servicemembers be appointed to the court-martial’s panel of members. The special-court-martial convening authority and a staff judge advocate prepared a list of possible servicemembers for the court-martial panel and provided the list of nominations to Kirkland’s convening authority. However, the list was created from a database of names that were kept on hand for all possible cases. Because all the servicemembers in that database had a rank of E-7 or higher, the list created from the database contained only servicemembers who were E-7 or higher. Kirkland’s convening authority was allowed to select court-martial members who were not on the provided list, but the convening authority selected Kirkland’s entire panel from the list. At trial, Kirkland moved to dismiss the case, arguing that he had been denied his right to a fair and impartial court-martial because all servicemembers with a rank of E-6 or lower had been systematically excluded from serving on his court-martial panel. The military judge denied the motion. Kirkland pleaded guilty and was sentenced by the court-martial’s members. The Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces agreed to review the panel-selection issue.