United States v. Travis

66 M.J. 301 (2008)

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United States v. Travis

United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces
66 M.J. 301 (2008)

Facts

Sergeant Matthew K. Travis (defendant) was convicted of several offenses related to his mistreatment of a detainee at a detention facility in Iraq. Travis was sentenced to a bad-conduct discharge, 15 months’ confinement, and reduction to the lowest enlisted grade. After the adjournment of Travis’s court-martial, the staff judge advocate (SJA) completed his recommendation and served it to Travis’s counsel for comment. Travis’s counsel received extensions for the deadline for submitting posttrial matters because Travis was awaiting a clemency letter from Lieutenant General Mattis, under whom he had served during the 1st Marine Division’s push to Baghdad. Travis’s counsel received the clemency letter and submitted it along with the rest of the clemency package. However, there was later disagreement about whether the submission had been timely. According to Travis’s counsel, the package was submitted electronically prior to the extended deadline. According to the SJA, the package was not received by the extended deadline. After the extended deadline had passed, the SJA forwarded his recommendation, without the clemency package, to the convening authority, Major General Natonski. Natonski approved Travis’s sentence without considering the clemency package. The United States Navy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the findings of the court-martial but reduced Travis’s confinement to 12 months. One year later, after Travis’s counsel presented evidence that the clemency package had been timely submitted, Natonski withdrew his initial approval of Travis’s sentence and conducted a second review. The second review included the clemency package, which contained a letter from Mattis recommending that Travis be granted confinement relief. After conducting this review, Natonski again approved Travis’s sentence. The Court of Criminal Appeals could not ascertain whether Travis’s clemency package had been timely submitted, but it affirmed the second approval of Travis’s sentence, reasoning that any error in Natonski’s first review had been harmless. Travis appealed.

Rule of Law

Issue

Holding and Reasoning (Erdmann, J.)

Dissent (Baker, J.)

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