badapple40 said:
This is WRONG. Please don't give advice if you don't know what you are talking about and cannot back it up with supporting statutory text or case law.
The only crimes for which there is no statute of limitations are crimes that are punishable by death.
Otherwise, there is a 5 year statute of limitations on mostly all military crimes. In this case, the punishment is within the 5 year limit.
I need to ask a couple more questions to help you:
First, since your spouse is not in the military, is the person she cheated on you with in the military?
Second, is the person you cheated on her with in the military?
This is an interesting case, given the holdings in U.S. v. Marcum, which came out of the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces this past August (yours truly helped brief that particular case). Anyhow, that case stands for the proposition that private, consensual sex cannot be punished in the military, absent some military necessity. It has been suggested that the Marcum case applies in the adultery sense, so long as there was not a military connection. In the present case, if the adultery was committed with a civilian, I would argue Marcum applies, and thus application of the military's adultery provision is impermissible under Marcum and the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Lawrence v. Texas. As such, if you are punished, it would be done illegally.
I suggest: 1. You print out my advice above. 2. You take it to the ADC. 3. You determine whether you are willing to put it on the line and demand trial by court martial and whether you are willing to go the distance. Your ADC may try to talk you out of it, especially if the punishment is simply a Article 15 with minimal punishment imposed. Nevertheless, someone has to be the test case.
**Using the information provided by the poster, and NOT reading anything into it, NO my post is not wrong. Read it again slowly. I might have typed to fast for you to understand.
**You make suppositions without any additional input from the poster. The only thing that may be incorrect in my post is my statement on adultery SOL within the UCMJ. And as noted, I said, "As far as I know". Why did I make that statement? To make sure the poster knows, in that instance, I was not familiar with the specific UCMJ SOL adultery statute.
**Quoting case law, IN THIS INSTANCE, did nothing for the poster. What he wanted was what really happens in the military when accused of adultery. Not the one case you posted that you, briefed. Go back, do the research, find all the cases on adultery under the UCMJ, and then come back and tell me my post was wrong.
**BTW, here is something for you to ponder. Quoted, in part, from the bottom of every page.
"The FreeAdvice Forums are intended to enable consumers to
benefit from the experience of other consumers who have faced similar legal issues. FreeAdvice does NOT vouch for or warrant the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of any posting or the qualifications of any person responding.” “Information on FreeAdvice or a Forum should not be relied upon and is not a substitute for advice from an attorney licensed in your jurisdiction who you have retained to represent you."
**What this means is, and I know this is hard for a LTC to understand, I can post my thoughts, observations, and advice even if an officer, like yourself, doesn't agree with the post. No, I don’t have to post case law or statutory text to prove my point. Thank you for your input.