Legal Case

United States v. Leese

Leese

Court

Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces

Decided

June 4, 2025

Jurisdiction

MA

Case Summary

This opinion is subject to revision before publication. UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ARMED FORCES _______________ UNITED STATES Appellee v. Nathan G. LEESE, Private First Class United States Army, Appellant No. 25-0024 Crim. App. No. 20230250 Argued April 8, 2025—Decided June 4, 2025 Military Judge: J. Harper Cook For Appellant: Lieutenant Colonel Ryan S. Coward (argued); Colonel Philip Staten, Lieutenant Colonel Autumn Porter, and Major Robert Luyties (on brief). For Appellee: Captain Nicholas A. Schaffer (argued); Colonel Richard E. Gorini, Major Lisa Limb, and Captain Anthony J. Scarpati (on brief); Major Justin L. Talley. Chief Judge OHLSON delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Judge SPARKS, Judge MAGGS, Judge HARDY, and Judge JOHNSON joined. _______________ United States v. Leese, No. 25-0024/AR Opinion of the Court Chief Judge OHLSON delivered the opinion of the Court. I. HOLDING We hold as follows: Confinement credit mandated by United States v. Pierce 1 applies only to a segmented sen- tence that corresponds to an offense that previously served as the basis for nonjudicial punishment; Pierce credit does not apply to an aggregate term of confinement. II. OVERVIEW Since its inception in the 1950s, Article 15 of the Uni- form Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), has included some form of the following provision: The imposition and enforcement of disciplinary punishment under this article for any act or omis- sion is not a bar to trial by court-martial for a se- rious crime or offense growing out of the same act or omission, and not properly punishable under this article; but the fact that a disciplinary pun- ishment has been enforced may be shown by the accused upon trial, and when so shown shall be considered in determining the measure of punish- ment to be adjudged in the event of a finding of guilty. 10 U.S.C. § 815(f) (2018). In United States v. Pierce, our predecessor court reached two key conclusions upon interpreting this pas- sage. First, the Pierce court noted that “[i]t is clear from the language of this provision that Congress did not intend for imposition of nonjudicial punishment to preclude the sub- sequent court-martial of a servicemember accused of a se- rious offense.” 27 M.J. at 368. And second, the Pierce court opined that “[i]t does not follow that a servicemember can be twice punished for the same offense.” Id. at 369. In re- gard to the latter point, Judge Cox invoked the memorable phrase that “in these rare cases, an accused must be given 1 27 M.J. 367 (C.M.A. 1989). 2 United States v. Leese, No. 25-0024/AR Opinion of the Court complete credit for any and all nonjudicial punishment suf- fered: day-for-day, dollar-for-dollar, stripe-for-stripe.” Id. Although the calculation of what has become known as “Pierce credit” has always been somewhat intricate, 2 the application of that credit used to be quite simple. “When Congress first enacted the UCMJ, courts-martial adjudged only one sentence even if they found the accused guilty of multiple offenses.” United States v. Flores, 84 M.J. 277, 280 (C.A.A.F. 2024). Under this “unitary sentencing” approach, a military judge would simply “subtract” the amount of Pierce credit from the total adjudged sentence. But no more. “In the Military Justice Act of 2016, . . . Congress in- troduced segmented sentencing in which a separate term of confinement and fine is adjudged for each specification [for] which there was a finding of guilty when sentencing is conducted by the military judge.” United States v. Smith, 2024 CAAF LEXIS 759, at *20 n.5, 2024 WL 4941954, at *7 n.5 (C.A.A.F. Nov. 26, 2024). So, instead of “unitary sen- tencing” in the military justice system we now have “seg- mented sentencing.” 3 III. FACTS All of this leads us to the facts in this case. Here, the military judge sitting as a general court-martial convicted Appellant, in accordance with his pleas, of two specifica- tions of willfully disobeying a superior commissioned of- ficer and one specification of assault consummated by a battery in violation of Articles 90 and 128, UCMJ, 10 2 A Table of Equivalent Nonjudicial Punishments has now been created to facilitate that calculation. Dep’t of the Army, Pam. 27-9, Legal Services, Military Judges’ Benchbook ch. 2, § V, para. 2-7-21, tbl.2-10 (2020). 3 Rule for Courts-Martial (R.C.M.) 1002(b)(3) expands on this point: “All punishments other than confinement or a fine avail- able under R.C.M. 1003, if any, shall be determined as a single, u

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Date FiledJune 4, 2025
Date DecidedJune 4, 2025

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JurisdictionMA
Court Type
federal

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Decided

Date Decided

June 4, 2025

Jurisdiction

MA

Court Type

federal

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AddedJun 4, 2025
UpdatedJun 9, 2025

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