Army Courts-Martial With Article 119b and Article 134, 2021–2025

Trends › By Offense › Article 119b › Army, with Article 134

Based on 11 cases · 2021–2025 · Army records · data updated October 24, 2026

Most of the Accused Contested the Charges

7 accused entered a not-guilty or mixed plea, and 4 pleaded guilty. A contested case is one where the accused pleads not guilty to at least one charge. Contested cases were 64% of those with a plea recorded, compared with 44% across Army-wide Article 119b cases.

Officers Made Up 27% of the Accused

Junior enlisted members (E-1 to E-4) and NCOs each made up 36% of the accused. Officers made up 27%. Across all Army Article 119b cases in 2021–2025, junior enlisted members were 49% of the accused, so this group had a smaller junior enlisted share and was more senior.

Confinement After Conviction

10 of the 11 cases ended in a conviction, and 7 of those sentences included confinement. The median confinement was 1.5 years. Across Army-wide Article 119b cases, the median was 10 months.

These are adjudged sentences. They come before any plea-agreement cap, clemency, or appeal, and they cover every charge in the case, not only the child endangerment charge.

Domestic Violence and Assault Charges

Article 119b was never charged alone in this group. Article 128b, domestic violence, appeared in 8 of the 11 cases. Article 128, assault, appeared in 7. Article 115, communicating threats, appeared in 4, and Article 90, disobeying an officer, in 3.

Court Level

10 of the 11 cases were general courts-martial (91%), compared with 76% in Army Article 119b cases overall. A general court-martial can impose any lawful sentence, including long confinement and a dishonorable discharge or dismissal. A special court-martial caps confinement at one year and cannot impose a dishonorable discharge.

Forum

36% of the cases with the forum listed went to members: 3 enlisted panels and 1 officer panel. The other 7 were decided by a military judge alone. The accused usually chooses whether a military judge alone or a panel of members decides guilt.

Trial Years

The trials ran from May 2021 through March 2025: 2 in 2021, 2 in 2022, 4 in 2023, 2 in 2024, and 1 in 2025. Army records in this data are sparse before 2021.

Limits of This Data

Since December 28, 2023, special trial counsel, not commanders, decide whether to prosecute covered offenses such as sexual assault, domestic violence, and murder. When every guilty finding is for an offense after December 27, 2023, the military judge sets the sentence within new sentencing parameters. The records give trial dates, not offense dates, so trials from 2024 on mix old-rule and new-rule cases.

Cases resolved by nonjudicial punishment, administrative separation, or no action are not in these records. The records also do not describe the evidence or the plea terms.

Dates and sources for the law changes mentioned here: UCMJ change timeline.

About the author. Jocelyn C. Stewart is a retired Army JAG with more than 24 years of trying courts-martial and more than 200 jury trials. She hosts Where All The Bodies Are Buried and runs the Law Office of Jocelyn C. Stewart. This analysis is for education and information only. It is not legal advice, and every case is different.