Nance conflict-of-interest claim left unresolved by panel’s ruling
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled Tuesday that a federal judge had no authority to overturn the military court-martial conviction of former U.S. Army soldier Bowe Bergdahl.
A three-judge panel ordered the dismissal of Bergdahl’s claims in district court and held that District Judge Reggie Walton in Washington lacked the jurisdiction to vacate the court-martial conviction and sentence in 2023.
Bergdahl’s military conviction stemmed from his desertion of his post in Afghanistan, after which Taliban-allied forces abducted him and held him captive for nearly five years.
The federal lawsuit Bergdahl filed in 2021 targeted not the underlying conviction but the conduct of the court-martial proceeding itself. Bergdahl argued that the punishment imposed violated his Fifth Amendment due-process rights.
In 2023, Walton ruled that military judge Jeffrey Nance had created a potential conflict of interest in the court-martial by failing to disclose his application for a position as an immigration judge in the Justice Department. On that basis, Walton vacated Bergdahl’s conviction.
The appellate panel’s Tuesday ruling did not pass on whether Nance’s undisclosed application created a conflict of interest in fact. By holding that Walton lacked jurisdiction to entertain Bergdahl’s challenge to his court-martial, the panel left the question of whether Nance’s conduct gave rise to a potential conflict of interest that warranted vacatur outside the scope of the federal district court’s review.
The ruling returns Bergdahl’s case to its procedural position before Walton’s 2023 order and forecloses the federal courthouse route Bergdahl had pursued to challenge the punishment imposed at court-martial.