Court Martial Index

The sentence a court-martial announces in the courtroom is rarely the whole punishment. Long after any confinement ends and any forfeiture stops, a court-martial conviction keeps shaping a person's life...

Jun 25, 2026 8 min read

Whether a confession, a forensic report, a text message, or a complaining witness's prior history reaches the factfinder at a court-martial is decided almost entirely by one body of law:...

Jun 25, 2026 8 min read

A service member who tests positive on a routine urinalysis is rarely surprised by the test itself, but is often surprised by how much legal weight a single laboratory report...

Jun 25, 2026 7 min read

A service member suspected of an offense often finds that the lawyer assigned to defend them wears the same uniform, holds a military rank, and draws a paycheck from the...

Jun 25, 2026 8 min read

A finding of guilty does not end a court-martial. It opens a second, separate proceeding whose only question is what the punishment should be, and for offenses committed in the...

Jun 25, 2026 7 min read

The summary court-martial is the least formal trial forum in the American military justice system, but two features make it genuinely unusual rather than merely small. First, an accused service...

Jun 25, 2026 7 min read

When a service member is accused of domestic violence, stalking, or sexual assault, a protective order can land on them within hours, often before any charge is preferred. The order...

Jun 25, 2026 10 min read

A service member can be locked up before any court has heard a word of evidence, on the order of a commander rather than a judge. That fact unsettles people...

Jun 25, 2026 8 min read

A drunk-driving arrest off base does not stay a civilian problem for a service member. The same night's conduct can be answered for in a state courtroom, a federal courtroom...

Jun 25, 2026 9 min read

Most courts-martial never reach a contested verdict. They end in a negotiated guilty plea, and the instrument that makes that possible is the plea agreement. For a service member weighing...

Jun 25, 2026 7 min read

Almost every country with a standing military keeps some separate machinery for disciplining its forces, but the design choices behind those systems differ sharply. The most useful way to read...

Jun 25, 2026 7 min read

A service member who copies a classified file to a thumb drive, accesses a network they were not cleared to use, or forwards a private sexual image of a colleague...

Jun 25, 2026 9 min read

A service member or family member who reads a court-martial guide written five years ago will find a system that no longer exists in several important respects. Who decides to...

Jun 25, 2026 9 min read

Obstruction charges rarely arrive alone. They tend to attach to a primary allegation as a second specification, built from what a service member did after learning an investigation had started:...

Jun 25, 2026 10 min read

No figure in military justice has historically held a portfolio of powers quite like the convening authority. A single commander could order a trial into existence, decide which charges went...

Jun 25, 2026 7 min read

A civilian who works alongside the armed forces overseas can break the law in a place where the host country declines to prosecute, no American civilian court sits, and the...

Jun 25, 2026 9 min read

For most of the twentieth century, a person harmed by a crime in the armed forces had no lawyer of their own inside the case. The trial counsel, the uniformed...

Jun 25, 2026 9 min read

A service member who commits an offense at a stateside barracks and one who commits the same offense at a remote outpost in a war zone are subject to the...

Jun 25, 2026 9 min read

A service member can be advised of the right to remain silent in situations where a civilian, standing in the same shoes, would receive no warning at all. That gap...

Jun 25, 2026 8 min read

A service member returning from a deployment, living in a barracks room, parking a car on post, or carrying a government laptop occupies a legal space that looks familiar from...

Jun 25, 2026 8 min read