⚖ Oral Arguments, with Context

Real court arguments, crisp audio, with context.

Court recordings can be difficult to follow, and many suffer from poor audio quality. This podcast enhances the audio, provides a brief introduction to each case, and explains legal concepts that may be unfamiliar to some listeners.

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United States v. Anthony D. Grafton — CAAF (May 20, 2026)

No. 26-0039/NA Argued May 20, 2026 Published November 8, 2026

The Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces examines a Navy sailor's sexual-assault conviction. Trial testimony described a friend finding him with an apparently unconscious woman on a barracks-elevator floor after an evening of drinking. Prosecutors charged the same encounter in two ways: a sexual act without consent, and a sexual act with someone too intoxicated to consent. A court-martial panel found him guilty under both theories. The trial judge conditionally set aside the intoxication-based finding, and the panel sentenced him only on the other. The Navy-Marine Corps appeals court later set aside that remaining conviction, reinstated the dismissed one, and reassessed the sentence. This argument asks whether the trial instructions improperly blurred the two theories, and whether appellate judges could determine punishment for a charge that had never received a sentence.

United States v. Anthony D. Grafton (No. 26-0039/NA) — United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, argued May 20, 2026.

Sources
Argument audio — official CAAF recording, May 20, 2026; complete recording with slow volume balancing and peak protection, no noise filtering or speech reconstruction:https://www.armfor.uscourts.gov/newcaaf/CourtAudio13/20260520A.mp3
Case and argument date — official CAAF May 2026 hearing calendar, docket 26-0039/NA:https://www.armfor.uscourts.gov/calendar/202605.htm
Prior court background and procedural ruling — Navy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals, August 11, 2025, reproduced in the filed petition supplement appendix:https://www.armfor.uscourts.gov/newcaaf/briefs/2025Term/Grafton260039Supplement.pdf
Defense factual and procedural account — filed pre-argument appellant brief, pages 3–12:https://www.armfor.uscourts.gov/briefs/2025Term/Grafton260039AppellantBrief.pdf
Government factual and procedural account — filed pre-argument appellee brief, pages 1–10:https://www.armfor.uscourts.gov/briefs/2025Term/Grafton260039AppelleeBrief.pdf

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