Court Martial Category

Whether a Navy case goes to trial depends mostly on what the charge is. In the current era, the trial question often focuses on whether the Office of Special Trial Counsel will “go forward” to a General Court-Martial or “defer” the case to the command and Staff Judge Advocate for trial or some softer outcome. OSTC has exclusive go-forward authority over certain UCMJ crimes known as “covered offenses.” OSTC will almost always take child sex offenses and CSAM cases to a GCM. They’ll defer he-said/she-said sexual assault allegations, or classic alcohol-related 120s. But it’s not as if they won’t prosecute sexual assault. OSTC often goes forward on Article 120 cases that have strong corroboration and aggravating facts. Domestic violence allegations from an ex will probably […]

Non-contact sex offenses under the UCMJ don’t require physical touching: recording, distributing images, voyeurism, exposure, child sexual abuse material, sextortion, and online enticement. The charges are spread across Articles 117a, 120c, and 134, and the table below shows what the government has to prove for each. These offenses overlap in ways prosecutors exploit, stacking charges from a single phone extraction across all three articles. In some cases, an honest mistake of fact about age can be a defense in CSAM cases involving older adolescents. OSTC, which controls charging on every offense covered here, makes its decisions by reading the analytical report of what was found on an accused’s devices and picks as many charging theories as possible. Non-Contact Offenses: Articles 117a, 120c, and 134 These […]

A military prosecution for CSAM under Article 134 requires the government to prove knowing possession of contraband, among other things. Military members often have bad ideas about how to defend themselves in this kind of case and take action that only makes the situation worse. There are things they can do to help themselves, and hiring a good military lawyer who will be proactive during the prolonged investigative period is one. McGuire AFB (Joint Base MDL) is a particularly good illustration of how all this works. What the Government Has to Prove Article 134 CSAM isn’t a strict liability offense. It’s crucial to understand how military CSAM cases are prosecuted and defended. The government has to prove the accused acted knowingly, and “knowingly” covers both […]

Military sex offense law under the UCMJ covers a dozen or more distinct crimes spread across six different sections of the code. Contact offenses allege physical sexual conduct and are prosecuted under Article 120 for adults, Article 120b for children, and Article 134 for sexual harassment. A single incident can produce half a dozen overlapping charges, and the table below shows what the government has to prove for each one. Conduct that doesn’t look sexual on its face can still be charged as a sex offense under Article 120, like hazing. In many sexual assault cases, and some cases involving minors, an accused might be able to mount a defense based on an honest mistake about consent or age. OSTC, the military’s congressionally-mandated elite prosecution […]

ICAC sting cases are mushrooming across every service. Shaw Air Force Base is one of the clearest examples: the cases occur there often enough, and follow a defined enough pattern, to illustrate what happens everywhere. A good Airman slowly morphs into a court-martial defendant through choices he makes, in a sting designed to get him to make exactly those choices. The military prosecutes these cases aggressively, but the defense can challenge the ICAC undercover standards if the attorney knows what to do. ICAC cases take a long time to develop, which is both the danger and the opportunity, and there are things an Airman should do, and not do, before the charging decision is made. How a Good Airman Slowly Morphs into a Court-Martial Defendant […]

If you or someone you know is facing an Article 120 sexual assault allegation in the military, you’re against a massive, coordinated campaign to get a conviction. The complainant gets an entire institutional support apparatus: advocates, individual legal counsel, expedited transfers, and command support. The accused gets an attorney, someday. Congress mandated the creation of a prosecution corps, OSTC, specifically to increase conviction rates in military sexual assault cases. The examples below come from a real visit to Cannon Air Force Base, but the sexual assault grievance industry works like this at every U.S. military installation worldwide. A great attorney can overcome all of the bias. How the System Treats the Accused vs. the Complainant Picture this scenario, borrowed from similar real-life cases. A female servicemember […]

In a single 2026 opinion, the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, the highest military court, identified 22 forms of prosecutorial misconduct in closing argument alone, catalogued decades of abuse, and then affirmed the conviction anyway. Which it has been doing for decades. CAAF has a long history of complaining about prosecutorial misconduct and doing nothing to put an end to it. Prosecutors can get away with almost anything, even calling the accused a pig. By affirming the conviction in this case while publishing a long list of the most egregious forms of abuse, CAAF sent a clear message to everyone currently under investigation: no one is coming to save you. Courts See the Abuse, Get Mad, Fix Nothing Prosecutors aren’t allowed to tell […]