Domestic Violence at Army Courts-Martial, 2021: The Year in Numbers

Trends › By Offense › Article 128b › Army, 2021

Based on 31 cases · 2021 · Army records · data updated October 24, 2026

Most Cases Were Guilty Pleas

26 of 31 cases were guilty pleas and 5 were contested. 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 16%, lower than the Army-wide 36%.

20 of the 26 guilty pleas are recorded with a plea agreement, and 6 have no entry. Army records say whether an agreement existed, not what it said.

How Much Confinement?

30 cases ended in a conviction on at least one charge, and 26 of those sentences included confinement (87%). The median confinement was 4 months. A quarter of the sentences were 8 months or longer.

17 convictions (57%) were sentenced to under 6 months, compared with 37% across the Army. 3 of 30 convictions (10%) were sentenced to more than one year, compared with 26% service-wide. 1 was sentenced to 5 years or more. 4 convictions (13%) had no confinement.

These are adjudged sentences, announced at trial before any plea-agreement cap, clemency, or appeal. They cover every charge in the case.

Court Level

A general court-martial can impose any lawful sentence, including more than one year of confinement and a dishonorable discharge. A special court-martial caps confinement at one year and cannot adjudge a dishonorable discharge.

26 of these 31 cases were general courts-martial and 5 were special courts-martial. The general share was 84%, higher than the 73% for all Army cases in 2021. Only 3 convictions were sentenced to more than one year, the range that only a general court-martial can adjudge.

Punitive Discharges

21 of 29 convicted enlisted members received a punitive discharge, either bad-conduct or dishonorable (72%). That is about the same as the 70% across the Army. 3 of those were dishonorable discharges.

1 officer or warrant officer was convicted and was dismissed. Dismissal is the officer equivalent of a punitive discharge. A sentence without a punitive discharge does not rule out a later administrative separation, which these records do not show.

Other Charges in the Same Cases

Article 128b was the only charge in 13 of the 31 cases. The other cases included other articles: Article 128 (assault) in 8, Article 90 (disobeying an officer) in 6, Article 134 (general article) and Article 109 (property damage) in 4 each, and Article 119b (child endangerment) in 3.

A sentence covers every charge. In a case that also includes child endangerment or property damage, the sentence covers the whole case, and the records do not divide it by article.

Rank of the Accused

By rank, the accused included 16 junior enlisted members, 14 NCOs, and 1 officer. This group is more senior than all Army cases in 2021.

The number of NCOs, 14 of 31, was close to the number of junior enlisted members, 16. The records list rank at trial. They do not show length of service or how a sentence affected a member's career.

Forum and Installations

The accused usually chooses whether a military judge alone or a panel of members decides guilt. Here, 28 cases were judge alone, and 10% of cases with the forum listed went to members, all 3 of them enlisted panels. Most judge-alone cases are guilty pleas, so this split mostly follows the number of guilty pleas.

Fort Bragg tried 6 of these cases, Joint Base Lewis-McChord 4, and Fort Drum, Fort Knox, and Fort Carson 3 each. Those 5 installations account for 61% of the 31 cases. Larger installations try more cases of all kinds, so a high count alone does not mean a base has a problem with this offense.

A New Article and the First Year of Records

Article 128b, domestic violence, applies only to offenses on or after January 1, 2019; earlier conduct was charged under other articles. The services had to begin publishing trial records under Article 140a by December 2020, and Army records in this data are sparse before 2021. This post therefore has no earlier year for comparison.

The records give trial dates, not offense dates. They do not show the evidence or the plea terms. Cases resolved by nonjudicial punishment or administrative separation do not appear.

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