654
Opinion of the Court
who is, ex officio, the Judge Advocate General of the Coast Guard, Art. 1(1), UCMJ, 10 U. S. C. § 801(1). Subsequent events, however, called into question the validity of these assignments.
In Weiss v. United States, 510 U. S. 163 (1994), we considered whether the assignment of commissioned military officers to serve as military judges without reappointment under the Appointments Clause was constitutional. We held that military trial and appellate judges are officers of the United States and must be appointed pursuant to the Appointments Clause. Id., at 170. We upheld the judicial assignments at issue in Weiss because each of the military judges had been previously appointed by the President as a commissioned military officer, and was serving on active duty under that commission at the time he was assigned to a military court. We noted, however, that "allowing civilians to be assigned to Courts of Military Review, without being appointed pursuant to the Appointments Clause, obviously presents a quite different question." Id., at 170, n. 4.
In anticipation of our decision in Weiss, Chief Judge Baum sent a memorandum to the Chief Counsel of the Coast Guard requesting that the Secretary, in his capacity as a department head, reappoint the judges so the court would be constitutionally valid beyond any doubt. See United States v. Senior, 36 M. J. 1016, 1018 (C. G. C. M. R. 1993). On January 15, 1993, the Secretary of Transportation issued a memorandum "adopting" the General Counsel's assignments to the Coast Guard Court of Military Review "as judicial appointments of my own." The memorandum then listed the names of "[t]hose judges presently assigned and appointed by me," including Chief Judge Baum and Judge Bridgman. Addendum to Brief for Petitioners A6.
Two Terms ago, in Ryder v. United States, 515 U. S. 177 (1995), we considered the validity of a conviction that had been affirmed by a panel of the Coast Guard Court of Military Review, including its two civilian members, before the
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