Legal Definitions - Court-Martial Reports

CMR stands for Court-Martial Reports.

Court-Martial Reports (CMR) refers to a specific series of legal publications that compiled and published important decisions from the highest military appellate courts in the United States between 1951 and 1975. These reports included opinions from the U.S. Court of Military Appeals (now known as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces) and selected rulings from the Courts of Military Review. Essentially, CMR served as a historical record of significant legal precedents established within the military justice system during that particular period.

• Example 1: A military defense attorney in 2023 is preparing an appeal for a service member's court-martial conviction. While researching historical legal precedents, the attorney discovers a similar case from 1965 that was decided by the U.S. Court of Military Appeals. To understand the exact reasoning and legal standards applied in that older case, the attorney would consult the relevant volume of the Court-Martial Reports from that year.

  Explanation: This illustrates how CMR provides access to historical appellate decisions, allowing legal professionals to research how specific military laws were interpreted and applied by the highest military courts decades ago, which can be relevant for understanding the evolution of legal principles or for drawing comparisons to current cases.

• Example 2: A legal historian is writing a scholarly article about the evolution of free speech rights for service members during the Vietnam War era. To analyze how military appellate courts addressed challenges to speech restrictions, the historian meticulously reviews various volumes of the Court-Martial Reports from the late 1960s and early 1970s, looking for specific cases and judicial opinions on the matter.

  Explanation: This example demonstrates CMR's value as a primary source for academic and historical research, offering direct insight into the legal reasoning and judicial trends of military appellate courts over a specific historical period, particularly concerning constitutional rights within the military context.

• Example 3: A retired military judge, now a law professor, is teaching a course on the history of military justice. When discussing significant shifts in appellate review standards that occurred in the 1950s, the professor assigns students to read specific landmark decisions published in the early volumes of the Court-Martial Reports to understand the judicial philosophy prevalent at that time.

  Explanation: This shows how CMR serves as an educational resource, providing students and scholars with direct access to foundational legal decisions that shaped the military justice system, allowing for a deeper understanding of its historical development and the principles that guided its courts.