T
tazrhodes
Guest
in 1982 i was courtmartialed for asking another soldier to lie(there were three other charges but two were dropped). as i had never been in legal trouble before i went with a court appointed military attorney. in our first meeting he only asked if i did it and i replied yes. the attorney said i should plead guilty, opt for a judge only trial and hope for the mercy court. the attorney did no investigation in to any of the facts in the case. when we went to court my attorney literally did nothing to defend me. two of the charges were dropped due to circumstances. one of the remaining two charges the judge twice asked my attorney if he still wanted to plead me guilty to even though the judge believed it to not even be a valid charge. my attorney said he was not going to contest it and i was convicted on those two charges and reduced from e-6 to e-1. just prior to the sentencing when there was a short recess, my attorney had us say a prayer together and he asked for forgiveness for not being prepared. later, after the courtmartial my wife investigated the charge the judge had not said anything about and found regulations that showed i was not guilty of that charge. we presented it to the jag office and the charge was overturned and my sentence was changed to reduction to e-4. the other charge still stuck because my attorney refused to contest it. i tried going to the main jag office to get help with what i felt was poor representation but their answer was i had not suffered enough. i eventually was forced out of the military due to amount of time in grade. is there anything i can do if my attorney failed to properly represent me? i currently reside in california.