Cpl. Simon Cadieux was found not guilty of sexual assault and drunkenness by a military judge following a court martial in May. Cadieux’s unit was participating in Operation Tropical Dagger, where Canadian Forces personnel mentor members of Jamaica’s military in counter-terrorism techniques and drug interdiction.
A U.S. Service does not have the power to appeal a not guilty finding or a sentence at this time. There are proposals to allow for a government appeal of a sentence that they believe is too low. I will leave it to our leader to further expand on this.
Government appeals of acquittals strike a U.S. reader as shocking. Some countries permit this, but not many. Statutes permitting government appeals of sentence or of major interlocutory rulings on legal grounds are a different matter, and much more widely authorized. At present, U.S. military law permits the latter but not the former.
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