Courthouse Steps Oral Argument Teleforum: United States v. Collins

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Consolidated with United States v. Collins, United States v. Briggs challenges the idea that a rape charge may only be prosecuted if it is discovered within five years of the crime. Michael Briggs was found guilty of rape in 2014; however, Briggs claimed that the statute of limitations had expired, as the crime happened in 2005. Briggs was convicted by the U.S. Air Force Criminal Court and, after a fairly complicated procedural route, will now be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Featuring: 

Arthur Rizer, Director, Criminal Justice & Civil Liberties; Resident Senior Fellow, R Street Institute

Prof. Richard Sala, Assistant Professor of Law, Vermont Law School

 

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Event Transcript

[Music]

 

Dean Reuter:  Welcome to Teleforum, a podcast of The Federalist Society's practice groups. I’m Dean Reuter, Vice President, General Counsel, and Director of Practice Groups at The Federalist Society. For exclusive access to live recordings of practice group Teleforum calls, become a Federalist Society member today at fedsoc.org.

                                                                                

 

Nick Marr:  Welcome all to The Federalist Society's Teleforum conference call. As this afternoon, October 15, 2020 we're here to have a discussion on Courthouse Steps Oral Argument: United States v. Collins. I'm Nick Marr. I'm Assistant Director of Practice Groups at The Federalist Society.

 

      As always, please note that expressions of opinion on today's call are those of our experts.

 

      We're pleased to have with us, this afternoon, Arthur Rizer. He's the Director of Criminal Justice and Civil Liberties, Resident Senior Fellow at the R Street Institute. We also have Professor Richard Sala. He's Assistant Professor of Law at Vermont Law School.

 

      After our speakers give their opening remarks, and we have a little bit of back and forth discussion, we'll then go to audience question and answer, so be thinking of those as we go along, have those in mind for when we get to that portion of the call. Thanks for being with us here, today. Professor Sala, I'll give the floor out to you, first.

 

Prof. Richard Sala:  Thank you so much. So I'm just going to start out with a little bit of summary of facts, some procedural history, and make sure that we put a fine point on the issues. So I'll just be brief as to the facts, because the general retelling of the facts serves our purposes for today.

 

      United States v. Collins consolidates three cases.  United States v. Briggs, United States v. Collins, and United States v. Humphrey Daniels. In each case, a member of the military, in these cases the United States Air Force, is charged, tried, and convicted of rape at general court martial. Each of the trials takes place well after the rape occurred. Briggs is convicted eight years after the rape, Collins 16 years after the rape, and Humphrey Daniels 17 years after the rape.

 

      To understand the procedural history, we have to step back to 2018 to a case that actually isn't one of the consolidated cases. And that case is United States v. Mangahas. In short, Mangahas was a 2015 prosecution for a rape committed in 1997. And when Mangahas came before the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, C.A.A.F. overruled its prior decision, deciding that Coker v. Georgia is controlling. In other words, rape is not punishable by death in the military context. And as a result, where rape had not been previously time-barred, it was now subject to a five-year statute of limitations. So how did the court get there? Let's unpack the Uniform Code of Military Justice a little bit.

 

      So we can start with Article 18. Article 18 provides for jurisdiction of general courts-martial. And the pertinent part, it provides that general court-martials have jurisdiction to try persons subject to the chapter for any offense made punishable by the chapter, including the penalty of death when specifically authorized by the chapter.

 

      And then we look to Article 43, which provides the statute of limitations. And Article 43 states, a person charged with any offense punishable by death may be tried and punished at any time without limitation. And everything else, with some exceptions, is subject to a five-year statute of limitations. So finally, we turn to the punitive article, Article 120, which is rape and carnal knowledge, which states that any person subject to this chapter who commits an act of sexual intercourse by force and without consent is guilty of rape and shall be punished by death or such other punishment as a court-martial may direct.

 

      And so that's kind of the whirlwind tour of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, or at least the pertinent parts. And so then we turn back to the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces in Mangahas. And there, C.A.A.F. decides that Coker is controlling in the military context. And as a result, the death penalty could never be imposed for the charged offense. The upside of that is that the offense isn't punishable by death for the purpose of Article 43, the statute of limitations. So the default five-year statute of limitations is applied.

 

      At the same time Mangahas is decided, Collins is pending appeal at the Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals. The Air Force Court applies Mangahas and reverses Collins’s conviction as being time-barred. The Air Force Judge Advocate General certifies the limitations issue in Collins to the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces for appellate review. And while that's in the pipeline, C.A.A.F decides Briggs, reaffirming Mangahas, and then affirms the Air Force Court's reversal in Collins. Likewise, with Humphrey Daniels, it goes to the Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals and they reverse Daniels's conviction.

 

      Subsequently, the Supreme Court grants the writ of certiorari on this issue, whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces erred in concluding, contrary to its own long-standing precedent, that the Uniform Code of Military Justice allows prosecution of a rape that occurred between 1986 and 2006, only if it was discovered and charged within five years.

 

      So that's where we are coming into oral argument. And I'll just briefly say, both sides lean into oral argument arguing statutory interpretation. In other words, neither side is leading with the Eighth Amendment issue of whether the Coker v. Georgia and Kennedy v. Louisiana analysis apply, although both are forced to address the issue during the ensuing back and forth with the justices. And I think, with that, I will turn it over to Arthur to talk about oral argument.

 

Arthur Rizer:  Thank you so much, Richard, I really appreciate it. And thank you for being with us. I think it's also important that you hear a little bit -- just a tiny bit more about our background here. I think it'll had some contours and some pictures to what we're going to say. I think it's -- I always find it frustrating when speakers act like they're so unbiased and they have transcended bias opinions.

 

      Both Professor Sala and myself come from a military background. I was a police officer and a federal prosecutor. But I also served 20 years in the U.S. Army. I served as an armor officer and as a military police officer. So I was the guy that was putting handcuffs on people. And Professor Sala served 20-plus years in the Marine Corps, both enlisted and as an officer. And retired as a field grade officer. And as an officer, he served as a JAG officer. And a good chunk of that time, he was actually a prosecutor working on many of these types of cases. So I think it's important that you kind of understand that as we go through this, because I think it's important to understand the lens that we're looking through as we talk about these.

 

      So what I'm going to do, really, really briefly, is I'm going to talk about the main points for the government and the main points for the petitioner. And then later on, I'm going to talk a little bit -- I'll go a little bit deeper about some of the questions from the justices and how I think that gave a highlight of how things are going to kind of play out. And this is just my opinion. Obviously, you never know what's going to actually take place.

 

      So the main points from Acting Solicitor General Wall, who is obviously counsel for the government, was first, the penalty and statute of limitations mirror each other. And that was one of his number one points. Article 120 says that rape may be punished by death. And Article 43 refers to offenses punishable by death. And so Congress was referring the limitation provision to Article 20. And basically, the government's top line article is, what are we even talking about? This is something that is just plainly there. And during oral argument, and if you read the briefs, that is something that becomes very kind of profound as one of their top line arguments. There really shouldn't be a discussion about this.

 

      Some of his other points, he said that Congress left no doubt in Article 18. Article 18 is the general court-martial provision that allows for death penalty when specifically enumerated and it's authorized by the UCMJ. He pointed out that Congress borrowed language of the military limitations. And for the past 80 years, every Article III judge has read the phrase, “punishable by death,” in the context referred to by that statutory punishment. So this is not new. We're at the same place we always have been.

 

      The last point is, that he tried to make and use some of his time -- more time in the oral argument than they used in the brief, was that they don't need to reach a constitutional question when a case is resolved on the grounds of statutory interpretation. And you're going to hear, as we go through some of the questions, that a lot of the questions really revolved around two major concepts: Whether this is a constitutional question in the first place, or whether this is just simply an issue of statutory interpretation.

 

      Now, as it relates to Professor Stephen -- damn, now I'm going to say his name wrong, how do you say his name again?

 

Prof. Richard Sala:  Vladeck.

 

Arthur Rizer:  Vladeck, I'm sorry. I said it earlier and it sounds very -- like a very mysterious person who wears a cloak at night. Last name, cool last name. They specifically, in 1953, talked about Courts have understood the Eighth Amendment applied to members of the military, and thus far, under Coker death is foreclosed. And it's interesting that both counsels kind of took the same approaches, what are we talking about? This is something that has already been talked about, ruled about. We're really above the water line when it comes to how the Court should be interpreting these. It's something that Congress made clear, the Court has made clear, and this is how things should come down.

 

      The second point, that kind of top-level point they make is, as death is foreclosed as a punishment for rape under Coker, it was therefore subject to a five-year statute of limitation after 1986. And the 2003 amendment to the UCMJ would have actually reduced the statute of limitations.

     

      And the last argument, which I found was one of the more powerful arguments is, in 2006, the statute of limitations for rape under UCMJ was extended indefinitely. And none of the conduct of this case took place after 2006, meaning that Congress knew what it was talking about and amended the UCMJ to be more in line with how they saw things, and they did it at that point. So therefore, there shouldn't be a lot of ambiguity about what we're talking about.

 

      So those are the kind of top-level points of what's going on. I think that we're going to spend just a couple seconds talking about UCMJ and the implications involved. This really wasn't a UCMJ case, as Professor Sala's going to talk about. But I do think it's important to put a little more beef and context, specifically for those of you that have never heard in the military that there's a long-standing kind of precedent that, just like we have in criminal law, that children are different. We treat children different under the criminal code because children are different. There's still -- there's a very similar kind of precedent under military law that the military is different. And most of that is embodied in UCMJ in other court cases around the country. So Richard?

 

Prof. Richard Sala:  Yeah. So I'll just make two quick points about Article 43 and then Article 55, and then I'm just going to briefly talk about some -- about whether there's implications for the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

 

      So one thing that comes up, and I think Arthur touched on it is, Article 43 says a person charged with any offense punishable by death may be tried without time limitations. It doesn't say a person charged with any offense punishable by death under the Code may be tried without time limitation, and that's one of the conversations that comes up, I think, specifically between Justice Kagan and the respondent. So again, it doesn't say under the Code, it just says punishable by death. And Coker makes it so that rape is not punishable by death. And so the logic follows.


There's also a conversation that happens around Article 55. What Article 55 is, is the article titled Cruel and Unusual Punishment Prohibited. And it says -- what it says is, punishment by flogging or by branding, marking or tattooing on the body, or any other cruel or unusual punishment may not be adjudged by a court-martial or inflicted upon any person subject to the Code.

 

      And the respondent argues that Congress meant Article 55 to track Eighth Amendment jurisprudence in real time. In other words, if the Court made a decision in a civilian context, it would apply in the military context. Although the respondent does carve out some exceptions, for example, for rape as a war crime.

 

      So just -- Arthur, anything you want to add to that before I talk about implications for the UCMJ?

 

Arthur Rizer:  No. I mean, you are clearly the subject expert on military law. You know, I was an armor officer and an MP, I didn't ever put on a JAG uniform.

 

Prof. Richard Sala:  So just a few things about the implications. So the respondent really stresses -- Professor Vladeck really stresses how much violence the government's position would do to decades of federal precedent in the military. And they note that since 1953, the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces has extended protection of the Eighth Amendment to service members. And I'm actually quite sympathetic to this concept.

 

      But I think it's an issue that Congress has to remedy. Much like the Sixth Amendment unanimity requirement, right. Now service members are the only persons in the United States who can be convicted without a unanimous jury, which I think that right should be afforded to service members, but it's really a question for Congress. And so, like Justice Thomas noted in his concurrence in Loving v. United States, he said, in light of Congress's express constitutional authority to regulate the Armed Forces, and the unique nature of the military's mission, the Court has afforded an unparalleled degree of deference to congressional actions governing the military.

 

      In this case, although the outcome undoubtedly affects the accused, undoubtedly has an impact on the victims and their families, it really upsets a pretty small number of cases. And Article 43 of the UCMJ has already been updated, which I think Arthur noted and what it says now is a person charged with absence without leave or missing movement in time of war with murder, rape, or sexual assault, or rape or sexual assault of a child, or with any other offense punishable by death may be tried and punished at any time without limitation.

 

      So I just don't see a watershed moment or big implications for an institution that really seeks the death penalty pretty rarely. And so I think with that, Arthur, we're going to turn to our expected outcomes.

 

Arthur Rizer:  Yeah. So what I -- before I get into that, I want to talk a little bit about some of the questions, because I think the questions are, for people who study the Supreme Court, the questions asked very often kind of are the only tea leaves we have in order to look at where the outcomes are. So I'm going to start with some of the questions to the Solicitor General and the first series kind of came from Justice Thomas that asked several questions that literally kind of set up hypotheticals.

 

      So the first one, it was, even if you accept Coker, will this apply to the statute of limitations. And the Solicitor General was frank and said, yeah, we think there's a different rule in the military. So even if Article 43 looks outside the Eighth Amendment, we say there's three major reason where Coker doesn't apply. First, the harms are different. Military rape can destroy a platoon. It could undermine forces, readiness. It can really damage foreign relations. As somebody who's served in Iraq when a rape charge came out from a young marine in Fallujah for a civilian woman living in the village, it really did affect the way we could patrol that city. So that was directly on point and true.

 

      The second point the Solicitor General makes is, there's no federal national consequences against the death penalty for rape in the military, as the Court basically laid out in Coker and Kennedy.

 

      And third, the Court defers to Congress's judgment as it relates to military justice. And this is a clear precedent. Congress gets to decide how the military justice system is going to be kind of laid out.

 

      Another area that I thought was really interesting is Justice Sotomayor talked a lot about the statute of limitations and how it's different from the Coker question. And the Solicitor General agreed and said that those are two major arguments. We think that Congress made both of those decisions already, though. And even if it's not allowed to impose the death penalty under the Constitution, it said -- it still said that it thought that these types of serious offenses could be prosecuted at any time. So even if Coker applied, it still doesn't affect the statute of limitations question because Congress made that really clear.

 

      Alito asked some really interesting questions. One that I thought was fascinating that basically said, asked the Solicitor General, don't some of these statute of limitations really work against you. Specifically, the canon of statute of limitations which is -- the canon of statute of limitations is (inaudible 00:18:24). It should be read narrowly. And also, the rule of lenity, which you should rule something in favor of easing up. And the Solicitor General said, we don't think there's any ambiguity, so none of those apply. It's really clear here.

 

      And then, finally, Justice Gorsuch asked the Solicitor General, that suppose if the Court found that there was a definitive answer and that punishable by rape was unconstitutional in the military context, would that affect the government's response? And the Solicitor General said it might affect their -- the tip of the spear argument they're making, but it wouldn't affect their overarching argument that it doesn't affect a judgment that Congress made as it relates to statute of limitations for the crime of rape in the military. So even if we lose on our main argument, our backup argument prevails.

 

      Now, Professor Vladeck, he had a different kind of series of questions, but his questions kind of applied more towards his understanding of how things worked in the military. Breyer asked several questions, the first being, did you find any military documents or history to support their history. And there was a long case, going into Navy Marine Corps Court of Military Reviews, looking at different types of wars and conflicts.

 

      Breyer also asked, during the history of this, do you run into any legislative history or any type of military jurisprudence that said that this is a good idea to have the statute of limitations work this way. And the professor was honest and said no, Justice Breyer. And I'm quoting this. And I think that only reinforces our position that Congress was not specifically thinking about rape at the time, in 1986, when it finally did all of its thinking specifically about rape as it clearly laid out and it was clearly put into the 2003 and 2006 justifications.

 

      Real quick, I know that we're -- I'm running out of my four minutes I had scheduled for this little segment, but Justice Kagan asked specific questions about what was -- where in the text is punishable by death specifically laid out and where are they drawing this from. And Professor Vladeck said that there's two different ways to read, punishable. Which I actually found was one of the more unique arguments. And I think it's a bit much for the other side to say that they're plain meaning understanding is -- it says an Article III court has never read it to mean that within 80 years. And I think that was an actual pretty powerful argument.

 

      And the last thing I'll go into is, Justice Kavanaugh argues that the government -- or basically laid out, the government argues that Article 55 generalized bar cannot be used to foreclose punishment authorized anywhere in the Code. And asked if they can respond. And Professor Vladeck had a pretty good answer. He said, yeah and there's two reasons. One, the government's positions require people to ignore the timing. And two, even if Congress came back, after Coker, and reaffirmed the death penalty, then this would be a different case. Because timing is very, very important in this case.

 

      And I lied, the last thing that I would point out is, Kavanaugh's last question that I wrote down was, I think that your Article 55 argument rests on the fact that Congress believed that our decision would apply through Article 55 in the military context. And Professor Vladeck said, I don't think there's any moment when Congress said, particularly, that statement. But I do think it comes through in 1919, when the cruel and unusual punishment language was added to Article 51 and that was just nine years after the Supreme Court's foundational Eighth Amendment decision in Weems and then in 1950, when the UCMJ was being debated and everyone understood, the purpose was to protect service members in the same extent as civilians. And I think that was a very important argument that was made by Professor Vladeck. And in my opinion, is one of the most important.

 

      In the 1950s—and this is something that comes out in the brief quite a bit—when the UCMJ was lined up, it was lined up because there was belief that individuals who served in the military sometimes got a raw deal. And they wanted to add protections for individuals in the military. And for a long time, by the way, the protections in the UCMJ were way more advanced than civilians had. Your Miranda rights were first in the military before we ever saw them in the civilian life. The rules of evidence were laid out in a very extensive way under the UCMJ, long before they were codified in the FRE. And so I think that was a really interesting point, and in my opinion, one of the most powerful points that Professor Vladeck came out.

 

      So, I'm going to give my anticipated outcome and then I'm going to kick it back over to Professor Sala. And then we'll -- I think I have some last statements will be about why I'm thinking that way.

 

      So again, as with anything, there's uncertainty when it comes to the Supreme Court. But I think the outcomes is slightly favored in the sense of -- for the government. I think the Court will address the statutory question ruling in favor of the United States and punt on applying Coker of the UCMJ with the majority of Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh and maybe even Kagan and Breyer. I think the only two things that would derail this prediction would be if the Court decides to embrace the Coker question, full on. Or if the Court finds that there is a temporal window created by the UCMJ amendments is valid enough to overrule the government's reasoning and affirm the lower decision.

 

      And I can give a little bit of reasoning after I hear -- after we hear from Professor Sala about his anticipated outcome. But quite frankly, the last 15 years, the Supreme Court has looked for every opportunity to kick cans down the road. I don't think they would deviate from that -- I'm using air quotes right now, precedent for this case. Professor Sala?

 

Prof. Richard Sala:  Thanks, I'll just be very brief. I also think the Court comes back in favor of the government here. But I think that they're going to address whether the Eighth Amendment applies in the military context, specifically whether Coker v. Georgia and Kennedy v. Louisiana are going to apply in the military context. I think there's five votes there, maybe more.

 

      A couple of things that made me think that we would get to the Eighth Amendment issue, I just don't think there's any evidence for Article 55 standing for the proposition that Congress meant to fully incorporate, not just the Eighth Amendment, but any jurisprudence, any Eighth Amendment jurisprudence that would follow.

 

      I also struggled with the idea that if we applied Coker, that it would apply in the military context to some rapes, but not other rapes. For instance, rape as a war crime. And then just along the long history of deference in this area and the treatment of the military community as separate and different. So I'll save a couple of my comments about why I think that's the case for question and answer, but I think it comes down for the government. And I actually think we address the constitutional issue. And I think that wraps up our prepared comments and we're ready to address some questions.

 

Nick Marr:   Okay, great. Let's get some audience questions now. To give our audience a couple minutes to line up here in the queue, I'll just ask the first question for either one of you, or both of you. Is there anything you saw that was, you didn't expect it, or it was a little bit unusual from different justices in oral arguments, or based on the briefs that were submitted or anything like that? Any routes you thought maybe that were new?

 

Arthur Rizer:  One thing that I found fascinating was Professor -- I mean, Justice Alito seemed to really have a mastery of military facts and history. And throughout -- one of the questions, he specifically talked about, throughout the history, there has been instances of occupied armies that have gone on rape sprees. And asked, if this were to happen again, would this unsettle our law that the death penalty could not be handed down in this case. And all of his questions seemed to really have a deep understanding of military history, military jurisprudence. And there's not that many military cases that go up to the Supreme Court, so I was not only impressed, but I was surprised.

 

      And Professor -- that was a question asked of Professor Vladeck, and he said there's separate offenses under the UCMJ that could be charged in those circumstances. Rape as a war crime, which is something that Richard was just referring to. Aggravated rape is also a war crime and it could be charged under different provisions of the UCMJ. And so when the Solicitor General says, our position requires this Court take that off the table, Professor Vladeck just said, no, no, he's wrong. I mean, that's just simply wrong as you read out how rape as a war crime could be applied. So that was one of the things that kind of stood out to me was, Justice Alito just seemed to really understand the jurisprudence as it relates to military law and war, and how war plays out. And how the military truly does need a different set of rules because they have a fundamentally different mission in life and position as civilian soldiers. And Marines, sorry Richard.

 

Prof. Richard Sala:  Just along the same vain as Arthur. It's hard to imagine a more aggravating factors than Kennedy v. Louisiana, and still, at least in the civilian context, we get a ruling that says the death penalty can't be applied.

 

      But the thing that really stood out to me was the exchange between Justice Kagan and Professor Vladeck. And at one point, Justice Kagan seems to agree that there's ambiguity. And so you start to think about the rule entity. But then a moment later, Justice Kagan says, it seems as though you don't have all the canons on your side. On the opposite side is the canon of constitutional avoidance that you're interpretation requires courts to decide the constitutionality of a punishment at the outset of routine criminal proceedings. And she goes on and she says, I mean this is a good case where we -- a good example where we would have to decide how Coker and Kennedy apply to the military just to decide a pretty routine criminal case.

 

      And so when I read the first part of that, I thought, okay Justice Kagan is finding some ambiguity, so the rule entity may apply here. But then kind of pivots towards the constitutional avoidance issue, which really surprised me and left me feeling like I wasn't sure where Justice Kagan would come down.

 

Nick Marr:   Okay, thanks very much. So we don't have any questions right now in the queue. I'll toss it back, if anyone --

 

Arthur Rizer:  Can I ask a question of Richard?

 

Nick Marr:   Yeah, go for it.

 

Arthur Rizer:  Yeah, Richard, I just -- this is something I want your two cents on is, do you think that the current climate of the Court, with only being eight members with all the -- just the insanity happening in the Senate over nominations is going to have an impact on any decisions? I mean I can kind of imagine the Chief Justice and other justices wanting to steer clear of any news making decisions during this time. I mean, the headlines of the Washington Post, the Court bans the death penalty for rape in the military, doesn't seem like something they're going to want to kind of advocate for. Do you think that the current -- we know politics plays a role in Court's decisions. We've seen that before. Do you think that could play out here?

 

Prof. Richard Sala:  I don't think so. I did spend some time thinking about whether we could, one, end up with a 4-4 kind of split. But after oral arguments, I kind of didn't think that was the case anymore. The one possible scenario is that we end up with a plurality in a whole swath of different concurrences based on whether some justices want to reach the Eighth Amendment issue, whether some just want to deal with the statutory issue. I think that's a possibility. But I expect them to make the decision that they would have made, you know, a month ago or six months ago.

 

Nick Marr:   Excellent. I'll toss it back to one or two of you, or we can wrap up a little early with some closing remarks. It's up to you.

 

Arthur Rizer:  Yeah, I mean obviously, I said earlier that I would come back to my reasoning. And I think that there's -- it's just really interesting. I think there seems to be some interest among the justices. I love doing this because you read one brief and you get an opinion. You read the other brief and you get another opinion. And then you listen to oral arguments and you're like, man, I totally changed my opinion about how things are going to play out and what I think the legal justifications are for this.

 

      But there seems to be some interest among the justices implying Coker with the Thomas, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Gorsuch each asking -- they all ask, and I kind of had a little point system where I was marking down points of who was asking what. But they each were asking hypothetical questions at some level, implying that Coker should be applied. But I just think there's a larger interest that the justices had and there seem to be more emphasis on the statutory questions in this case, and the statutory interpretations. So in my mind, I think the Court is going to make a decision to interpret -- to not try and do a constitutional interpretation when there's an easy way via statutory interpretation exits. But I have been absolutely floored wrong when it comes to predicting the Supreme Court, so I could be here, as well.

 

Prof. Richard Sala:  I just -- I think -- I'll just wrap up by saying one interesting thing for the listeners to think about, or at least take a look at, was right after Kennedy v. Louisiana, there was actually a request for a rehearing, specifically to address the issue that rape of a child was punishable by death in the uniform code, but the rehearing was denied. So, if people are interested in seeing the very brief statements from Justice Kennedy and I think Justice Scalia on what that rehearing was denied, it's an interesting read and worth your time.

 

Nick Marr:   Excellent.  Okay, great.  Arthur, anything you want to offer in closing?

 

Arthur Rizer:  No, that was it. I mean, I really enjoyed doing this with Professor Sala. It's not many times you get a Marine Officer and an Army Officer to agree on the same outcome, even if for different reasons. So point to joint operations right there, right.

 

Prof. Richard Sala:  Absolutely.

 

Nick Marr:   Okay, thank you both for joining us today. And on behalf of The Federalist Society, I want to thank you for your time and expertise today. And to the audience for calling in. As a reminder to the audience, we welcome your feedback by email at [email protected]. And as always, keep an eye on your emails and our website for announcements to upcoming Teleforum calls, and our upcoming virtual National Orders Convention, which will be held next month. Second week of November. All right. Thanks, all. We are adjourned.

 

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Dean Reuter:  Thank you for listening to this episode of Teleforum, a podcast of The Federalist Society’s practice groups. For more information about The Federalist Society, the practice groups, and to become a Federalist Society member, please visit our website at fedsoc.org.