Revisiting the Erik J. Burris case
We wrote about Major Burris, a former sexual assault prosecutor for the Army, a few weeks ago when he was sentenced to 20 years in prison for rape. Our friends at MilitaryCorruption.com, however, had a different take on the case. They sent us the results of the Article 32 investigating officer’s report, which I present below;
Investigating Officer's Report- US v Burris by JonnLilyea
The investigating officer’s name was LTC Jessica Halling and basically she determined that Burris’ ex-wife, the person preferring the rape charges against Major Burris wasn’t credible and that the Army should just offer the Major an Article 15 and a General Officer Memorandum of Reprimand. Obviously, the Army disagreed and went with a court martial.
Military Corruption says they made that decision because he made the statement in open court that, as a prosecutor, he was pressured by his highers to make sexual assault cases when little evidence against the accused existed. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but obviously, they had something against him to go against the investigating officer’s recommendations.
Category: Big Army
I am now interested in the examination of the investigator, as well as the complainant. Something is up, but I just can’t tell what.
Interesting reading. I was surprised that CID wasn’t more gung-ho for the cell phone taps. But more likely they don’t want the rest of the Army to find out just how often they tap soldiers cell phones mining for dirt inside CONUS.
From reading the investigator’s conclusions it becomes pretty clear to me that this was essentially another case of an ex-wife and her family using sexual assault charges, in this case assault against herself and not the child, to obtain exclusive custody of that child.
It happens all too often because women have learned that it works and in their minds the end justifies the means. If hubby’s career is ruined and he has to spend the prime of his life behind bars because of a few lies, that the PC Army wants to hear, so frickin’ what? He’s a jerk, so screw him! Unfortunately the courts endorse their perjury and assign all blame to one side, the husband’s, rather than recognize that the wife and her lawyer are using the court and the law as a weapon that is uniquely available only to her side.
Those who see justice as truly blind have some vision problems themselves.
Poe,
Too many of my cases are like this, but they use the child to bring the allegations. It is sickening and makes it hard to sort the wheat from the chaff. Too often it is the kids and the fathers that suffer. It’s a hell of a way to prove your position in a divorce, albeit a popular one.
Unfortunately the courts endorse their perjury and assign all blame to one side, the husband’s, rather than recognize that the wife and her lawyer are using the court and the law as a weapon that is uniquely available only to her side.
Not always…I’ve seen two acquittals on those facts, though they were scary, touch-and-go situations for the ex-husbands.
(In one case the wife still got everything she wanted from the divorce, including marrying the boyfriend and keeping custody of the kids…I’m not sure how the other turned out…but at least the ex-husbands didn’t go to prison.)
The trick is to root it out prior to arrest. There are usually consistent clues that indicate the lies. It is challenging, though, to say the least.
All too often just being the subject of a molestation investigation, even if exonerated, is a scarlet letter that is difficult to overcome. The stakes are high.
I’ve heard military prosecutors and defense counsel say much the same thing, i.e., that in the current environment cases are being taken to trial that wouldn’t have been previously, because the military wants to be seen as “doing something” about sexual assault.
MrBill is right, IMHO. I had a Soldier who was charged with sexual assault a few years ago. When he was assigned to my squad he was waiting for the civilian courts to find out his fate. The alleged victim was uncooperative, so the Soldier in question spent over two years flagged–watching his peers deploy and move on while he was the epitome of “Private for Life”. Fast forward: the charge was dismissed, the Soldier’s flag removed, and he was promoted and recommended for an ASI-producing school.
A couple of months later, after talking to company leadership about reenlisting, a higher entity decided to push for a chapter. At the time he had only a handful of months left on his contract. The packet went up, he did his part without any issues, then we waited for the packet to come back from division.
I left the unit but spoke to others in it recently. Instead of ETS’ing or getting chaptered, someone senior (in my opinion, bucking for a [another?] star) is pushing for a court martial. He should have ETS’ed before the holidays but spent the holidays away from his family instead waiting to find out if he’ll finish his military career in prison.
The Soldier was one of the best I’ve known and has paid plenty for the alleged incident, especially since it never went to trial.
Long read, but interesting. What charges does she face for submitting numerous false sworn statements?
The daughter seems to be the biggest victim but obviously not from sexual assault.
Unfortunately, it looks like LTC Halling’s warning in the last sentence of the second paragraph on page 34 proved to be correct.
Hopefully, MAJ Burris will fair better on appeal than he did in this court.
I really don’t like this matter. A great many good people have had their careers ruined by lies and innuendo and assorted bullshit BUT Burris was not some neophyte, a newcomer to law or investigations or trials. You can bet that the investigator and her sources were grilled rather thoroughly and, in the end, some charges stuck and others did not. The investigator’s conclusions were hers alone and I am unwillingly to ascribe to her any greater ability to separate fact from fiction than was possessed by the trier of fact. The place to discredit the ex-wife was when she was on the stand and under oath. The content of an investigator’s report satisfies neither of those conditions.
2/17 Air Cav.
I disagree. The Article 32 officer had weeks to go over all of the evidence and likely has years of legal experience to draw on. The panel members had perhaps hours to review the evidence and come to a recommended verdict. So, I would tend to put significant weight into her conclusions.
For good or ill, the Article 32 process does provide both the defense and prosecution with an opportunity to have a dry run at testimony. The accusor, therefore, could have looked much more credible in January 2015 to the CM panel than she looked than she appeared in November 2013 to the Article 32 officer. Also, some inconsistencies in her testimony may have been addressed or mitigated in the interviening time period (we just don’t know).
Agreed. Pretty sure one of the things an Article 32 officer is required to do is assess the credibility of evidence if he/she sees contradictory evidence from different sources.
Best I can tell, in the face of contradictory evidence it would be kinda hard to make or justify a recommendation to the Convening Authority without doing exactly that.
“The panel members had perhaps hours to review the evidence and come to a recommended verdict.” They had as much time as they needed. If they needed more, it was theirs for the taking. What my issue is pertains to the absence of any info regarding the sworn testimony and the examination of the key players. I have no doubt that the investigator deemed her evidence and intuition (frequently, one has that bad feeling in the stomach and only later learns why) sufficient but, unless I missed something, an investigator isn’t the trier of fact. I don’t really care one way or another but to suggest that Burris was railroaded overlooks HIS experience and whatever was learned and determined through witness examination.
Given that there appears to have been very little press concerning the courth martial while it was occuring, we have no idea what was said in court, nor do we know what was permissible interms of calling the accusors claims into question.
The panel can only weight the evidence that is presented to them. It is possible that MAJ Burris actions, in terms of taking files from the OSJA office, made him look like a less than sympathetic defendent in a he said/she said case and sealed his fate.
That’s my best guess as to how it went down. (Since the prosecution normally puts its best foot forward at the 32, I doubt they came out with exciting new evidence at trial. Though they might’ve added a social worker to talk about “typical victim behavior.”)
My experience is that military boards and panels tend to go whole-hog when they see an integrity violation. And with all the “start by believing the victim” indoctrination…people are looking for excuses to convict anyway, and something like that is all the excuse they need.
The plethora of sexual misconduct charges in the military, much like the avalanche of charges of “kiddy porn” in the civ sector of gov not so long ago, has all stunk of an organized purge to me.
You can’t fight either charge and win once the court of public opinion is mobilized.
Now that I have read the documents I am not sure of what happened and why it resulted in a 20 year sentence. Ms. Burris was shown repeatably to be an inconsistent witness or out and out liar. She has a huge agenda all her own and it has nothing to do with the Majors military career or performance. Now, I do not know if later evidence retrieved from electronic devices tells a different story but on the face of what I read, not being a lawyer, the Major was on a high speed railroad train to an obvious agenda of the Army’s. Just mu humble untrained opinion.
Maybe the major has been railroaded, but, at least Senators McCaskill, Gillibrand, et al are happy.
There must be something about all this that has not been made public. From the published stuff, there is no way that a criminal conviction could have been obtained.
Dang. This just stinks.
This is how I imagine lynch mobs get their impetus. This guy BURRIS was a prosecutor who tried the very type of charges that he faced. We have only one person’s account and conclusion and the last time I looked neither in the civilian nor military spheres do investigators determine legal guilt. In fact, investigators sometimes miss things, presume things, and sometimes fit a size-9EE foot into a size 8D shoe. I wish that everyone would give the benefit of doubt to the actual triers of fact and recognize that the investigative report itself may have been discredited and its findings contradicted by sworn testimony. We simply do not know what the trier of fact saw and heard in evidence. And now, I’m done. I think.
I see.
So, I guess OJ Simpson must have really been innocent after all.
That was low. What he was was not guilty as a matter of law. That is not the same thing as innocent which is not a verdict. My point remains the same: We do not know what the trier of fact heard and saw in evidence.
And my point, 2/17 Air Cav, was that those “triers of fact” – AKA juries – are not infallible. Sometimes it’s due to a botched prosecution; sometime it’s due to jury nullification; and sometimes they simply get it wrong. But it does happen on occasion.
That’s one reason why prosecutors (and investigators) get paid to use their judgement regarding whether or not a case should go to trial. Weak cases waste resources, and can screw over the innocent if the prosecutor happens to get lucky and get an undeserved conviction.
I don’t have a clue whether or not this guy was guilty; neither do you. But it bothers me that someone obviously pushed for prosecution when a legal expert spent weeks investigating the case, determined that the primary witness was not credible, and recommended the case not go to trial.
“We do not know what the trier of fact heard and saw in evidence.”
And why do we not? Court martial records, absent real, valid, provable national security concerns, are according to law a matter of public record.
I agree with several commentators here, and have painful experience to show it, that the military brings lousy cases under pressure from “rape guilt ideology.” In fact, for all its thoroughness, I’m quite disturbed that the investigating officer accepts some of the myths of that ideology:
“Throughout the review of testimony and evidence, I remained mindful of common behaviors sexual assault victims often display, for example delayed reporting or making false statements prior to reporting.”
Now, if someone lies before “reporting,” and claims the assault happened a long time ago, how do you know she’s a “victim” at all? The answer is, you don’t. Liars lie too, and they like to set their lies in distant times and places you can’t verify…just as stolen valor fakers like to tell you their service records are classified or destroyed.
But social workers come to court to testify as “experts” that these things are common among real victims…the important thing to understand being, that they don’t know a real victim from a faker anymore than you or I do. And maybe less if they’re wearing ideological blinders.
The investigating officer did a careful job, and it’s a credit to her, and moreover I appreciate her being able to spot a witness who “turns on the tears” whenever it’s convenient. Heaven knows I wish more factfinders understood that that happens! Tears aren’t truth, damn it. But we’ve come to a sorry pass when an investigator has to make assumptions in favor of the accuser, and the presumption of guilt.
Also…the rules on Article 32 have now been changed so that the accuser doesn’t have to go there and give testimony if she doesn’t want to. So now we must have investigators figuring out whether the complaining witness is truthful without the complaining witness being there…which of course will mean, rubber-stamp every case for trial.
There is no justice when the accused can’t face their accuser.
There is no justice when there is no requirement of physical proof of a crime.
You said it: Tears aren’t proof of anything. What we have here, are witch trials.
I agree: tears aren’t proof of anything. Any actor can do that at will.
My concern is that this issue is rapidly becoming inflated to such an extent that at some point, some real victim will be accused of crying ‘wolf!’ and not be heard.
Reminds me of something I mentioned here previously:
“Court isn’t about finding out who’s telling the truth anymore. Court is about who lies the best.”
It is a shame that this is happening, but it sounds like someone added personal feeling to it, rather than making the call based on the evidence at hand.
Way off topic but relevant to the Facebook comments posted above. I wonder if some of the people posting via Facebook realize the following:
Facebook Statement of Rights and Responsibilities: (https://www.facebook.com/legal/terms)
3. Safety
6. You will not bully, intimidate, or harass any user.
7. You will not post content that: is hate speech, threatening, or pornographic; incites violence; or contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence.
Facebook Community Standards: (https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards)
Violence and Threats:
Safety is Facebook’s top priority. We remove content and may escalate to law enforcement when we perceive a genuine risk of physical harm, or a direct threat to public safety. You may not credibly threaten others, or organize acts of real-world violence. Organizations with a record of terrorist or violent criminal activity are not allowed to maintain a presence on our site. We also prohibit promoting, planning or celebrating any of your actions if they have, or could, result in financial harm to others, including theft and vandalism.
Bullying and Harassment:
Facebook does not tolerate bullying or harassment. We allow users to speak freely on matters and people of public interest, but take action on all reports of abusive behavior directed at private individuals. Repeatedly targeting other users with unwanted friend requests or messages is a form of harassment.
Identity and Privacy:
On Facebook people connect using their real names and identities. We ask that you refrain from publishing the personal information of others without their consent. Claiming to be another person, creating a false presence for an organization, or creating multiple accounts undermines community and violates Facebook’s terms.
Has anyone looked into
Reporting Abuse:
If you see something on Facebook that you believe violates our terms, you should report it to us.
Not a Facebook user my self but its a thought….
Hey all you dumb fucks. Do you actually believe that all of us, a whole bunch, would continue to fight you and come after you if we had something to hid. You and your threats of the government coming to get us. Don’t you think they would have come by now. Problem is that they don’t even know themselves if we are the real thing and they can’t prove we are or are not. Well, WE ARE THE REAL THING! and that is why we will never stop until we take all of you down. 10 years of my life I’ve been fighting the government’s mistakes and you assholes have absolutely NOTHING to go on to continue to harass all of us. One day, and it won’t be long, ALL OF YOU will be facing the judge for you misdeeds and lying, story fabricating bullshit. And it won’t be in civil court but Criminal. You guys break the law every single day. You will all be in one big bull pen jail cell. Maybe we will all come and visit and just laugh at you from outside the cell doors. Quit fighting a losing battle. You can call us all the names you want and make up all your stories and distort the truth, but in the end, we will be found to be the REAL DEAL. I do believe every single one of you are jealous of us for something. I can’t figure out what it is as I must assume at least some of you (NOT YOU KILLEFFER) accomplished something while in the military. Is it that you can’t stand the thought of someone else accomplishing more than you. We don’t have to make up stores. We did what we had to do and were recognized for it. You keep saying, our honorable service should be enough. Well it is and so should yours be. But YOU, not us, are dishonoring your service, NOT US. Ah, misspoke about the Civil suit. There is one BIG ONE out there just about ready to go. Then, bye, ye TAH. Then… Read more »
Well Frankie,
Your epitaph will define you as a blowfish/poser. You have gone to great lengths to insure that you will always be known as liar, embellisher, forger, and proven valor thief.
You wrote your record on the internet and as you know the internet is forever…. great job cupcake!
‘government coming to get us’ (meaning the Clown Kartette)????
Oh, that’s really rich, visconi. Really rich. You’re one of four imbeciles who have been threatenting TAH people. No one has threatened you, you incredible moron.
That’s kind of the big, fat, bloated POT caling the kettle black! Projecting much, marone?
No one here is telling ‘stories’ about stuff that didn’t happen except you, asswipe. You and your buttbudedies in the DRG are the only ones who’ve been doing that.
You can’t even answer simple questions asked by a helo crew chief because you’re a lying sack of weasel crap, visconi.
You DON’T KNOW the answers to those questions, do you, pendejo? No. You don’t.
yo, Frankee… spell much?
What? Never heard of you until YOU, Frank Visconi, lied publicly. Forgot about you several times, but you don’t seem to tolerate that well, so keep coming back here to draw attention back to yourself.
Why? Seems like a very dumb thing to do, especially when you are trying to convince someone (maybe only yourself?) that you are being harassed by those you seem to be stalking.
So, I am more than willing to continue to not give you another thought, Frank Visconi, if you can simply learn to not continue to reappear here. The easiest way to do that is simply to not click on any links which bring you here. Just take it one day at a time, and pretty soon we will all have forgotten about you. Again.
*YAWN* You again? Don’t you have some playing in traffic to do, along with Paul K. Wickre, Daniel A. Bernath, and Dallas Wittgenfeld? (Oops, I did it again. There’s that Google hit thingy.)
By the way, where I the hell did you come up with some of your TAH names. Stupid. Some of you even use the branch of service you were (or are still) in like Air Cav and the like, thereby embarrassing your entire branch of service along with yourselves. In 35 plus years of law enforcement I’ve NEVER come across the likes of creeps like you. A whole lot of assholes but most of the time they were drunk. In the end, not really bad guys. But this group on TAH, you are real losers and it’s ever single day of your lives. Hope you are proud of yourselves. My guess is that the others that served in the same outfit or branch of service as you are scratching their heads wondering how they even survived serving with you.
The embarrassment is all yours Frank! Go count some C-rats
You were never in law enforcement, visconi. You’re lying about that, too. You worked for NO police department EVER. Quit lying.
Not even close, silly boy. I earned every dime of my pension, and my nickname. And, I am welcome to return to my old units any time I wish.
See, how that works is to never claim something that is not earned, never to bring negative attention to personnel by lying or even exaggerating one’s service. You would know how great that feels if you hadn’t built your service history upon lies.
*YAWN*. Frank Visconi, you’re boring the hell out of me. AS TO the other juvenile imbeciles in The Dutch Rudder Gang, you Santorum-frosted dingleberries on an inbred buck-toothed rentedSwamp Donkey’s hind end have once again accused the wrong man of being me. So far you’ve accused at least seven, and who knows how many more you will do so with, you’re all Grade AAAA certified IDIOTS and you prove it day in and day out. I couldn’t make stuff like this up if I tried, you sniveling Shmendricks ought to get your own TV reality show, I can see it now, “Tonight on ‘EXTREME IDIOTS ‘…”
Frank Visconi is a homosexual. (not that there is anything wrong with that…)