I am a lawyer but not a military lawyer. Having said that, I read that to mean that if the issue is whether the person who gave the order was actually General So-and-So or an imposter, that is a question of fact for the panel, but if it is undisputed that the named person gave the order, the question of whether the order was legal was a pure question of law for the judge. This goes to the basic rule that judges decide law and juries decide facts.
Here, the orders came not from Obama but from LTC Lakin's immediate superior. In any event, Obama is certainly "in fact occupying the position" of President at this time. (This goes back to the "de facto" vs. "de jure" debate we had on another thread). The question Lakin tried initially to raise was whether Obama was legally entitled to be President, not whether he in fact is President, so his defense raised an issue of law for the judge.
By the way, you are off in the weeds on that business about "final" and "interlocutory" rulings. That distinction goes to when the ruling can be appealed; it has nothing to do with who gets to make the ruling.
All of this is of course moot now, because LTC Lakin pleaded guilty to disobeying orders and swore under oath that the orders were legal, that he knew they were legal and that he had been advised by his lawyer that they were legal. And no, he would not have been in contempt of court to say otherwise; he could have stuck to his position, pleaded not guilty, and preserved the issue for appeal that way. He of course had to agree with the judge if he wanted her to accept his guilty plea, but he didn't have to plead guilty. He chose to do that.
Post #598.
I present this as an additional example of a polite perspective from an apparently reliable and knowledgeable individual.
Lind’s ruling that the legal authorization for the orders are irrelevant to the lawfulness of the order contradicts 4 different legally-binding sources. When can that ruling be appealed?
If the legal authorization for the orders - which in the case of combat is the President - is irrelevant, then why did Lind even mention anything about Obama? Why did she take judicial notice that Barak Obama (and yes, I spelled that how SHE spelled it) was certified as the electoral winner and took the oath of office? Under her own ruling, shouldn’t that be just as irrelevant as whether he ever “qualified” as required by the 20th Amendment?
Where in her ruling does Obama being “the President” (whether Constitutionally or not) have anything to do with the price of beans in China? She cited no legal reference that brings him into the picture at all - specifically used i under Article 92 “lawfulness” and avoided ii.