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21 M.J. 82

United States v. Burris

United States Court of Military Appeals · decided 1985-12-02

Applies 10 U.S.C. § 907

Relies on United States v. Morris

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1985-12-02

How this case has been cited

Cited by 39 later decisions — most recently June 2003 · most notably United States v. Jones (1992), United States v. Barnard (1990)

200198519902000decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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¶1Opinion of the Court

PER CURIAM:

¶2A general court-martial convicted appellant, inter alia, of signing two false official records with intent to deceive (specifications 1 and 3 of Charge I), in violation of Article 107, Uniform Code of Military Justice, 10 U.S.C. § 907. Both of these forms were signed at the same time when appellant went to the base housing office to apply for base housing. In the course of making this application, appellant filled out and signed two forms on which he falsely indicated that he had a wife and two dependent children.

¶3Under these circumstances, we conclude that “what is substantially one transaction” has been “made the basis for an unreasonable multiplication of charges” against appellant. See para. 266, Manual for Courts-Martial, United States, 1969 (Revised edition); see also United States v. Morris, 18 M.J. 450 (C.M.A.1984). As we pointed out in Morris, once these facts became “clear from the evidence of record, it was incumbent on the trial judge — and subsequently the Court of Military Review — either to consolidate the specifications or to dismiss a specification as multiplicious.” Id. at 451. Because such action was not taken below, we will effect it now. The court below held these two specifications were multiplicious for sentencing and reassessed the sentence, so appellant was not prejudiced as to sentence by this multiplicity.

¶4Specifications 1 and 3 of Charge I are consolidated into specification 1, which is amended by adding, after the phrase “Application for and Assignment to Military Family Housing,” the words: “and 6550 ABW Form 16, Housing Occupancy Record”; and by changing all relevant singular verbs and nouns to plural. The decision of the United States Air Force Court of Military Review as to specifications 1 (as consolidated) and 2 of Charge I, Charges III and V and their specifications, and the sentence is affirmed.

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