Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Sinclair's Pre-Trial Hearing to Determine if Emails Can Be Used As Evidence

Brig. Gen. Jeffrey A. Sinclair's pre-trial hearing accused of charges of  misconduct began at Fort Bragg’s courthouse Monday morning.

Sinclair is accused of an inappropriate relationship and sexual misconduct with one female soldier, a general misconduct for texting three other soldiers along with one civilian.

This was the first time Sinclair was accompanied by his four-member civilian legal defense team, led by Richard Scheff of the Montgomery McCracken law firm. Working alongside the military defense servicemembers, Scheff had assumed control in the courtroom on Monday morning.

Military judge Col. James L. Pohl listened to arguments by both the government and defense over the issue of the validity of the jurisdiction of warrants over email accounts.

The prosecution team's position was that the accused did not have the expectation of privacy through using email.

Arguing against Scheff's position, the prosecution team argued that while there might have been ambiguities, there was not a misstatement involved in the affidavit for the warrants to search the email traffic involving Sinclair. 

The defense team countered that the recklessness was involved in obtaining the affidavit and that "sloppiness" should not have occurred during a criminal investigation.

While the pre-trial hearing is on the docket through March 27, Pohl dismissed  the legal teams Monday afternoon, giving the defense two weeks to gather their research, leaving his decision unknown on whether he will allow the use of emails as evidence.

Sinclair has deferred entering a plea with his court-martial proceedings scheduled for June 25. If convicted, Sinclair could face life in prison on the most serious of the 25 counts of sex-related charges that include wrongful sexual contact, sodomy and adultery, which are considered crimes in military.