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William G. Bolton v. Department of the Navy Board for Correction of Naval Records

Paid petition · United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, No. 18-3284 · judgment January 18, 2019

Certiorari denied · June 24, 2019
Pre-decision estimate: 3% cert probability

Before the decision, well below the 4.1% base rate, with no standout signals pointing toward a grant.

Questions presented

  1. The scope of the authority of the United States Navy’s Board for Correction of Naval Records (“Naval Board”) to remove an unjust summary court-martial sentence from a service member’s record, by expungement or by clemency, is in need of clarification by this Court. 10 U.S.C. § 1552(a)(1) was previously interpreted by lower courts to allow the Naval Board to expunge or remove invalid or unjust courts-martial sentences. See, eg., Baxter v. Claytor, 652 F. 2d 181, 185 (D.C. Cir. 1981); Owings v. Secretary of the United States Air Force, 447 F.2d 1245, 1249-50 (D.C. Cir. 1971). In 1983, however, Congress amended 10 U.S.C. § 1552 to streamline and modernize the military justice review system. In doing so, to prevent redundancy, Congress limited the Naval Board’s powers with respect to courts-martial that are “tried or reviewed.” 10 U.S.C. § 1552(f). It is unclear, however, from the relevant legislative history and the text of the amendment, whether any changes were intended to be made to the Naval Board’s powers over non-adversarial summary courts-martial sentences. A summary court-martial is a special disciplinary procedure and, despite the similarities in name, a summary court-martial is a very different process than general courts-martial or special courts-martial. Most significantly, a summary court-martial is a nonadversarial process, unlike general courts-martial or special courts-martial. Further, summary courtsmartial are not considered criminal convictions and are often utilized because they require lesser due process. This Court, in Mittendorf v. Henry, 425 U.S. 25, 31-33

Counsel of record

For petitioner
Thomas Frederick Hull II
Manchester Newman & Bennett LPA

For respondent
Noel John Francisco
Jones Day

Case

Conference history
Distributed for 1 conference

Proceedings

  1. Jun 24 2019
    Petition DENIED.
  2. Jun 04 2019
    DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 6/20/2019.
  3. May 22 2019
    Waiver of right of respondent Department of the Navy Board for Correction of Naval Records to respond filed.
  4. Apr 18 2019
    Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due May 22, 2019)