United States v. Dreyfus, 201700052

Appellant was arraigned 3 August 2016 on multiple charges under Articles 107, 121, 132, and 134, UCMJ, including false official statements, larceny (BAH/COLA fraud), adultery, obstruction, and fraud against the United States.
Pretrial rulings: the military judge dismissed three specifications of Additional Charge I with prejudice (9 Aug 2016); the government later dismissed two specifications of Charge III without prejudice (30 Sep 2016).
Appellant entered mixed pleas (guilty to some offenses, not guilty to others); the judge accepted several guilty pleas and members convicted him, contrary to some pleas, on remaining contested offenses.
The military judge consolidated the operative language of Charge II’s sole specification into Additional Charge II’s specification and conditionally dismissed Charge II and its specification without prejudice; some findings were entered pursuant to R.C.M. 917 (judge’s dismissal for lack of evidence).
Sentence: bad-conduct discharge (not executed by CA), confinement one year, reduction to E-1, and $20,000 fine; convening authority approved sentence as adjudged except he did not order execution of the bad-conduct discharge.
The court-martial promulgating order (published 1 Feb 2017) omitted and misstated several arraignment offenses, pleas, findings, and dispositions; the appellant appealed solely arguing the promulgating order did not accurately reflect proceedings.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether the promulgating order complied with R.C.M. 1114(c)(1) by summarizing all charges, pleas, findings, and dispositions from arraignment	Promulgating order is inaccurate and fails to reflect all offenses, pleas, findings, and dispositions from 3 Aug 2016	Government did not dispute accuracy defects but argued errors did not prejudice appellant’s substantial rights	Court held the promulgating order was in error and must be corrected to reflect all arraigned offenses, pleas, findings, and dispositions
Whether the promulgating-order errors were materially prejudicial (harmless-error analysis)	Appellant asserted entitlement to an accurate official record but did not show prejudice	Government argued errors did not affect substantial rights and no prejudice was apparent	Court applied harmless-error standard, found no material prejudice but ordered correction because appellant is entitled to an accurate record
Whether consolidation/conditional dismissal of Charge II into Additional Charge II and related findings were correctly reflected and should be documented	Appellant sought accurate summary of consolidation and conditional dismissal	Government acknowledged consolidation occurred and that promulgating order failed to note it	Court directed supplemental promulgating order to reflect consolidation, conditional dismissal, and accurate plea/findings dispositions

United States v. Crumpley, 49 M.J. 538 (C.A.A.F. 1998) (appellant entitled to official record accurately reflecting results; harmless-error standard applied to promulgating-order defects)
United States v. Thomas, 74 M.J. 563 (C.A.A.F. 2015) (discussed consolidation/merger of operative language between specifications and related procedures)

For the Court

R.H. Troidl, Clerk of Court