How Camp Pendleton, California Handled Assault Cases (Article 128), 2019–2023

Trends › By Installation › Camp Pendleton, California › Article 128, 2019–2023

Based on 86 cases · 2019–2023 · Navy and Marine Corps records · data updated October 24, 2026

Few Contested Assault Cases

Only 32 of the 86 records list a plea. Of those, 26 accused pleaded guilty and 6 contested the case, meaning they pleaded not guilty to at least one charge. The contested share of 19% is lower than the 40% for Navy and Marine Corps Article 128 cases overall.

The share was about the same at both court levels: 20% of general courts-martial and 18% of special courts-martial with a plea listed were contested. Many records lack a plea, so these percentages rest on far fewer cases than the full count of 86.

Assault Was Charged in 30% of Cases at the Base

Assault was charged in 30% of the 291 courts-martial at Camp Pendleton, California between 2019 and 2023. The yearly count went down over the period: 30 in 2019, 23 in 2020, 15 in 2021, 9 in 2022, and 9 in 2023. The last case in the data was tried in October 2023.

Slightly Longer Confinement Than Elsewhere

Of 82 convictions, 70 carried confinement. The median confinement was 7 months, compared with 6 months in the rest of the Navy and Marine Corps. A quarter of the confinement sentences were 1.5 years or longer.

These are adjudged sentences, the terms announced at trial. They come before any plea-agreement cap, clemency, or appeal. Each covers every charge in the case, not only the assault.

Sentence Lengths

Terms of 6 months to 1 year were the most common, at 34% of convictions here compared with 27% elsewhere. Terms under 6 months were 27% here and 35% elsewhere. Convictions with no confinement were 15%, about the same as the 14% outside Camp Pendleton.

Sentences longer than one year came in 20 of 82 convictions (24%), the same 24% as across the rest of the Navy and Marine Corps. Terms of 5 years or more were 7% of convictions, compared with 5%.

General and Special Courts-Martial

General courts-martial heard 39 of the 86 cases, or 45%. The other 47 were special courts-martial. A general court-martial can impose any lawful sentence, including long confinement and a dishonorable discharge or dismissal. A special court-martial can impose no more than one year of confinement and no dishonorable discharge.

The median confinement was 2 years at general courts-martial and 5 months at special courts-martial. Since 2019, a special court-martial can also be tried by a military judge alone, capped at six months of confinement with no punitive discharge.

Punitive Discharges After an Assault Conviction

Of 78 convicted enlisted members, 51 received a punitive discharge: 37 bad-conduct discharges and 14 dishonorable discharges. Across all Navy and Marine Corps Article 128 cases in 2019–2023, the punitive discharge share was 61%.

The group includes 1 convicted officer or warrant officer, who was dismissed. A dismissal is the officer equivalent of a punitive discharge. A member who received no punitive discharge could still be separated administratively later.

Other Charges in the Same Cases

Assault was the only charge in 37 of the 86 cases. Service-wide, 194 of 574 Article 128 cases charged it alone. When other charges were included, the most common were Article 92 (orders violation) in 15 cases, Article 120 (sexual assault) in 14, Article 134 (general article) in 7, Article 115 (malingering before 2019; communicating threats since) in 7, and Article 114 (dueling before 2019; endangerment since) in 4.

When an assault charge appears with a sexual assault or domestic violence charge, the assault charge can describe part of the same incident. The sentence covers the whole case, so the records cannot show how much of it was for the assault.

Rank of the Accused

By rank, 58 accused were junior enlisted (E-1 to E-4), 20 were NCOs (E-5 to E-9), and 1 was an officer. The group was more junior than in assault cases in the rest of the Navy and Marine Corps.

Junior enlisted members were therefore most of the people whose sentences are counted on this page.

What the Records Do Not Show

Navy and Marine Corps records before December 2020 often omit the plea, so few cases here have a plea on file. The records list trial dates, not offense dates. They do not describe the evidence or any plea terms. They leave out assaults handled 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. Article 128 Courts-Martial, 2016–2025

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.