What Happens to Army NCOs (E-5 to E-9) Facing Assault Charges?

Trends › By Offense › Article 128 › NCOs (E-5 to E-9)

Based on 237 cases · 2021–2025 · Army records · data updated October 24, 2026

50% of Cases Were Contested

119 accused pleaded guilty and 118 contested at least one charge. A contested case is one where the accused pleads not guilty to at least one charge, by a not-guilty plea or a mixed plea. The contested share was 50%, higher than the 38% in all Army Article 128 cases.

108 of the 119 guilty pleas are recorded with a plea agreement, and 11 have no entry. Army records say whether an agreement existed, not its terms.

How Did Contested Cases End?

34% of the 118 contested cases that reached a verdict ended in a full acquittal, higher than the 30% in all Army Article 128 cases. 64 ended in a partial acquittal: not guilty of at least one charge or specification and guilty of another. Army results list findings charge by charge, which is why partial acquittals are common.

Contested cases decided by members ended in a full acquittal 39% of the time (27 of 69). Contested cases decided by a military judge alone ended in a full acquittal 12% of the time (5 of 41). These 110 cases are the decided contested cases with the forum listed. The accused generally chooses the forum, so the cases in each group are not alike. The records cannot show whether the forum affected the result.

Who Decided Guilt?

31% of cases with the forum listed went to members: 66 enlisted panels and 4 officer panels. The other 159 were judge alone. Among contested cases, members heard 69 of 110 (63%). Most judge-alone cases are guilty pleas, so the members share mostly follows the contested share.

Fewer Punitive Discharges

57% of convicted enlisted members here received a punitive discharge, compared with 70% in all Army Article 128 cases. There were 76 bad-conduct and 36 dishonorable discharges.

An enlisted member's punitive discharge is either bad-conduct or dishonorable. A sentence without one does not rule out a later administrative separation.

How Much Confinement?

197 cases ended in a conviction on at least one charge, and 160 of those sentences included confinement (81%). The median confinement was 6 months, close to the 5 months in all Army Article 128 cases. A quarter of the sentences were 2 years or longer.

49 of 197 convictions (25%) were sentenced to more than one year, about the same as the 26% in all Army Article 128 cases. The share in each sentence range is close to the share for all Army Article 128 cases. All figures are adjudged sentences, before any plea-agreement cap, clemency, or appeal, and each covers every charge in the case.

General and Special Courts-Martial

188 of the 234 cases with a court level listed were general courts-martial (80%). At those, the median confinement was 9 months, and 55% of cases were contested. At the 46 special courts-martial, the median confinement was 2 months, and 33% were contested. The court level is not listed for 3 cases.

Only a general court-martial can impose more than one year of confinement or a dishonorable discharge. A special court-martial caps confinement at one year and can impose no more than a bad-conduct discharge.

Other Charges in the Same Cases

57 of the 237 cases charged Article 128 by itself. The most common other charges were Article 120 (sexual assault) in 67, Article 134 (general article) in 60, Article 92 (orders violation) in 44, Article 128b (domestic violence) in 35, and Article 115 (communicating threats) in 26. When assault is charged with sexual assault or domestic violence, the assault charge can describe part of the same incident. The sentence covers the whole case.

Years, Installations, and Rank

The 237 cases were tried from January 2021 to December 2025: 69 in 2021, 53 in 2022, 43 in 2023, 42 in 2024, and 30 in 2025. Fort Bragg had 21, Joint Base Lewis-McChord 19, and Fort Hood, Fort Bliss, and Fort Campbell 15 each. Together they account for 36% of the 237 cases. Larger installations try more cases of every kind.

Every accused in this post is an NCO. In all Army Article 128 cases, the comparison group, junior enlisted members (E-1 to E-4) were 56% of the accused.

Rule Changes and What the Records Do Not Show

Assault under Article 128 is not a covered offense. Since December 28, 2023, a special trial counsel handling a covered offense, such as domestic violence, can also take a related assault. New sentencing parameters apply when every guilty finding is for an offense after December 27, 2023. The records show trial dates, not offense dates, so trials from 2024 on include cases under both sets of rules.

The records also do not show the evidence, the plea terms, or cases resolved by nonjudicial punishment or administrative separation.

For what the offense covers and how it is defended, see Article 128 on the law firm's website. Dates and sources for the law changes: UCMJ change timeline.

Compare: federal court. Aggravated Assault: Federal Sentences vs. Army Courts-Martial

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.