Court Martial Index

A finding of guilty at a court-martial is not the end of the case, and it is not yet a final conviction. Between the moment the panel or judge announces...

Jun 25, 2026 8 min read

Sexual offenses in the armed forces are not governed by a single crime called "sexual assault." They are governed by a tiered scheme of distinct offenses, each with its own...

Jun 25, 2026 8 min read

A military prosecution does not begin the way a civilian one does. There is no grand jury indictment and no prosecutor who unilaterally files an information. Instead, a charge starts...

Jun 25, 2026 8 min read

Military law did not arrive fully formed. Most of its defining rules were forced into the open by a single contested case that answered a question the system had left...

Jun 25, 2026 10 min read

The honest answer to this question is two answers, because two different things set the outer edge of any court-martial sentence. The first is the menu: the fixed list of...

Jun 25, 2026 7 min read

A service member who has been referred to a court-martial is usually less interested in legal theory than in one practical question: what actually happens, in what order, and where...

Jun 25, 2026 7 min read

A statute of limitations is a deadline. Miss it, and the government loses the power to prosecute no matter how strong its proof. In the military justice system that deadline...

Jun 25, 2026 6 min read

When serious charges move toward a general court-martial, the military justice system runs them through a checkpoint first. That checkpoint is the Article 32 preliminary hearing, and understanding what it...

Jun 25, 2026 7 min read

The fear that drives most questions about this subject is a specific one: that a person could be convicted at court-martial of something they did not do. The military justice...

Jun 25, 2026 10 min read

The armed forces operate a capital-punishment system that is separate from the federal and state schemes, with its own eligible offenses, its own sentencing rules, and its own chain of...

Jun 25, 2026 8 min read

Two service members can be absent from their units for the exact same number of days, in the exact same circumstances, and face wildly different exposure. One is looking at...

Jun 25, 2026 8 min read

A diagnosis is not a defense. That single sentence explains most of the distance between how mental illness feels to a service member facing charges and how military law actually...

Jun 25, 2026 12 min read

A service member who is read their rights by an investigator, prosecuted at a court-martial, defended by free counsel, and advised in the same week about a will is dealing,...

Jun 25, 2026 7 min read

Most courts-martial that reach trial end in a guilty plea, yet a military guilty plea is harder to enter than a civilian one. A service member cannot simply tell the...

Jun 25, 2026 7 min read

The military justice system runs on the same command structure that decides promotions, assignments, and efficiency reports. The same general who convenes a court-martial also controls the careers of the...

Jun 25, 2026 7 min read

A court-martial is a proceeding against one person, but the financial and logistical fallout lands on an entire household. A spouse who is not charged, a child who is not...

Jun 25, 2026 7 min read

Two people who would be free to date as civilians can face a court-martial for the same relationship once both wear the uniform. That is what makes fraternization a distinctly...

Jun 25, 2026 8 min read

A service member trying to make sense of a charge sheet runs into a numbering problem before a legal one. The charge cites an "article," but the articles are not...

Jun 25, 2026 7 min read

A court-martial conviction is not always the last word. Separate from the appellate courts, which ask whether the trial was lawful, the military system carries several mercy powers that ask...

Jun 25, 2026 8 min read

When a service member faces military prosecution, the single fact that most shapes what is at stake is not the charge itself but the forum chosen to try it. The...

Jun 25, 2026 8 min read

Every court-martial, every Article 15, and every set of rights a service member can invoke traces back to a single act of Congress. The Uniform Code of Military Justice is...

Jun 25, 2026 7 min read

A military judge is, by background, an active-duty officer who holds a rank, draws an efficiency report somewhere in the system, and will eventually rotate to another assignment like any...

Jun 25, 2026 7 min read

For a service member, the practical question raised by a special court-martial is one of ceilings. This forum can take up to a year of liberty, two-thirds of a year's...

Jun 25, 2026 8 min read

A service member tried by court-martial today receives an independent military judge, codified rights against self-incrimination, defense counsel at no cost, and a path of appeal that reaches the Supreme...

Jun 25, 2026 7 min read

A court-martial panel decides the same questions a civilian jury decides: whether the evidence proves guilt and, in a capital case, whether a death sentence is warranted. What differs is...

Jun 25, 2026 8 min read