Name: Chad D. Benner
U.S. V. Benner No. 01-0827
Argued April 4, 2002
Decided August 29, 2002
Plea: Guilty
Charges: Sodomy of a child and indecent acts
Military Branch: U.S. Army
Listed In National Sex Offenders Registry? Yes Pennsylvania REPEAT OFFENDER
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Chad D. Benner
Sergeant U.S. Army
Convicted Sex Offender
Sodomy Of A 4-Year-Old Child & Indecent Acts
Appellant was convicted, pursuant to his conditional guilty pleas, of sodomy with a child and indecent acts, in violation of Articles 125 and 134, Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), 10 USC §§ 925 and 934, respectively.1 The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed. 55 MJ 621 (2001).
Prior to entering his pleas, appellant moved to suppress a confession given to special agents of the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command (CID).2 The issue in this appeal is whether this confession was voluntary.3 We hold that it was not voluntary, and we reverse the decision of the Court of Criminal Appeals.
FACTS
The facts of this case are unique and are set forth in full in the opinion of the Army Court of Criminal Appeals. 55 MJ at 622-23. For purposes of this appeal, we can summarize the facts as follows. In May of 1998, appellant engaged in an episode of indecent acts and sodomy upon his four-year-old stepdaughter while his wife was in the hospital in Germany. In June, the child first reported the acts to her grandmother, and then to her mother after she returned from the hospital. Appellant’s wife confronted appellant, and he admitted the acts to her. No complaint was made to the military police or through command channels. Rather, in August, the grandmother removed the child from Germany to her home in the United States. Also, appellant’s wife left him and returned to the states.
After the passage of some time and with the urging of his wife and mother-in-law, appellant decided to seek counseling from Chaplain (Captain) S. On September 20, 1998, at their first meeting, appellant was very emotional and confessed to the chaplain that he had engaged in an inappropriate relationship with his stepdaughter. At the conclusion of the meeting, the chaplain advised appellant that he might have to report the child abuse to the proper authority.
The following morning, the chaplain contacted the Army Family Advocacy office and was advised that he was required to report the child abuse. The chaplain related this to appellant. Appellant then confessed even more details about his conduct to the chaplain.
The chaplain told appellant it would be better for him to confess to the authorities on his own accord, and offered to go with him to the military police station. They discussed "the issue of forgiveness, of forgiving himself, [and] that [confessing] may be a step in helping him deal with that." Initially appellant was reluctant to go to the military police station. Chaplain S testified that, if he had not volunteered to go with appellant, he doubted that appellant would have made the report himself.
The chaplain escorted appellant to the Military Police (MP) station and told Sergeant First Class (SFC) K, the commander of the MP station, that appellant was at the MP station to make a statement regarding his "improper relationship with his stepdaughter." SFC K called CID, and about an hour later, two agents arrived. The CID agents warned appellant of his rights under the 5th Amendment, Article 31(b), UCMJ, 10 USC § 831(b), and Mil.R.Evid. 305(d), Manual for Courts-Martial, United States (2000 ed.). The agents did not give a "cleansing" warning regarding appellant’s earlier confession to the chaplain. Appellant agreed to waive his rights and eventually gave a detailed, six-page, handwritten confession to CID.
News from Department Of Defense: July 2, 2010
Wilkes-Barre police have charged a man with sexually assaulting a teenage girl for several years, beginning in July 2002. Investigators say the woman kept the sexual abuse quiet for years before revealing it to her fiancé and then to police in December 2008. Chad D. Benner, 37, is charged with involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and three counts of indecent assault. The former Wilkes-Barre man is already classified as a "sexually violent predator" by the state police for attempting sexual contact with a minor in Hanover Township in 2005 and a past conviction on sexual assault charges while in the U.S. Army, records show.
