What Was Tried at Fort Benning, 2021–2023? 50 Courts-Martial
Fort Benning tried 50 courts-martial from 2021 to 2023, and most ended in a guilty plea. Only 18% were contested, compared with 34% in the rest of the Army.
Understanding Trends in Military Practice · 6 min read
Trends › By Installation › Fort Benning › 2021–2023
Short answer: Fort Benning tried 50 courts-martial from 2021 to 2023, and most ended in a guilty plea. Only 18% were contested, compared with 34% in the rest of the Army. Every case ended in a conviction, and 77% of convicted enlisted soldiers received a punitive discharge, compared with 73% across the Army.
Guilty Pleas, Each With an Agreement
A case is contested when the accused pleads not guilty to at least one charge. At Fort Benning, 41 cases ended in guilty pleas and 9 were contested, an 18% contested share. Across all Army cases in 2021–2023, the share was 34%.
All 41 guilty pleas are recorded with a plea agreement. Army records note whether an agreement existed but not its terms, so the data cannot show what sentence limits any agreement set.
No Full Acquittals in Contested Cases
The comparison table shows 0 full acquittals in the 9 contested cases. All 50 cases ended in a conviction on at least one charge.
Army bases with a similar number of cases had different results. At Fort Riley, 3 of 8 contested cases that reached a verdict ended in a full acquittal. At Fort Wainwright, 5 of 10 did. There were few contested cases at each base, so a single verdict changes these counts noticeably.
| Installation | Cases | Contested | Full acquittals (decided contested) | Median confinement | Punitive discharge (enlisted) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fort Benning | 50 | 18% | 0 of 9 | 5 months | 77% |
| Fort Riley | 48 | 17% | 3 of 8 | 8 months | 81% |
| Fort Wainwright | 43 | 24% | 5 of 10 | 6 months | 50% |
Most Convicted Soldiers Received a Punitive Discharge
For enlisted soldiers, a punitive discharge is a bad-conduct or dishonorable discharge. Of 48 convicted enlisted members, 37 received one (77%), compared with 73% across all Army cases in those years. Only 3 of the 37 were dishonorable discharges.
Both convicted officers or warrant officers in the group, 2 in all, were dismissed. When a sentence included no punitive discharge, an administrative separation could still follow, and these records do not track it.
How Much Confinement?
Of 50 convictions, 38 included confinement. The median confinement was 5 months, about the same as the 6 months across all Army cases. A quarter of the sentences were 1.3 years or longer.
Convictions without confinement were more common here: 24% compared with 17% across the Army. Terms longer than one year were part of 12 of 50 convictions (24%), slightly lower than the 27% in the rest of the Army. These are adjudged sentences, before any plea-agreement limit, clemency, or appeal, and they cover every charge in the case.
| Adjudged confinement | Convictions | Share here | Share, the Army as a whole |
|---|---|---|---|
| No confinement | 12 | 24% | 17% |
| Under 6 months | 20 | 40% | 39% |
| 6 months to 1 year | 6 | 12% | 17% |
| More than 1 year, under 5 years | 9 | 18% | 19% |
| 5 years or more | 3 | 6% | 8% |
Sentences by Court Level
A general court-martial can impose long confinement and a dishonorable discharge. General courts-martial were 30 of the 49 cases with a court level listed (61%). In those cases, 90% of convictions included confinement, with a median of 1 year.
Special courts-martial cap confinement at one year. In the 19 special courts-martial, 58% of convictions included confinement, with a median of 2 months. The court level is not listed for 1 case.
More Larceny, Less Sexual Assault
Every case has a charge list, and each case is counted once under every article charged. Article 121 (larceny) was charged in 12% of cases, compared with 7% across the Army. Article 120 (rape and sexual assault) was charged in only 3 cases, or 6%, compared with 25% across the Army.
The most common charge was Article 128 (assault), in 15 cases (30%), about the same as the 31% across the Army. Article 134 (general article) was next, in 12 cases (24%).
| UCMJ Article | Cases | Share here | Share, the Army as a whole |
|---|---|---|---|
| Art. 128 Assault | 15 | 30% | 31% |
| Art. 134 General article | 12 | 24% | 22% |
| Art. 112a Wrongful use, possession of controlled substances | 7 | 14% | 11% |
| Art. 121 Larceny | 6 | 12% | 7% |
| Art. 92 Failure to obey order or regulation | 6 | 12% | 15% |
| Art. 107 False official statements | 4 | 8% | 8% |
| Art. 80 Attempts | 3 | 6% | 8% |
| Art. 120 Rape and sexual assault | 3 | 6% | 25% |
Assault and the General Article
Of the 15 cases charging assault, 13 ended in a conviction on that article (87%), with a median confinement of 5 months. 10 of those 15 ended in a guilty plea (67%). Of the 12 cases charging Article 134, 11 ended in a conviction on it (92%), with a median of 1.3 years. 10 of those 12 were guilty pleas (83%).
A case can include a conviction on one article and an acquittal on another, so these rows overlap. The records do not say why an accused pleaded guilty or contested.
| Article | Cases charging it | Convicted of it (share) | Median confinement when convicted of it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Art. 128 Assault | 15 | 13 (87%) | 5 months |
| Art. 134 General article | 12 | 11 (92%) | 1.3 years |
Military Judges Decided Almost Every Case
The accused usually chooses whether a military judge alone or a panel of members decides guilt. A judge alone decided 45 of 50 cases (90%). Members heard 5, all enlisted panels. Most judge-alone cases are guilty pleas, so the forum figures are consistent with the small number of contested cases.
NCOs made up 50% of the accused, junior enlisted soldiers (E-1 to E-4) made up 46%, and officers made up 4%. Across the Army, junior enlisted soldiers were 57%.
Number of Cases and Limits of the Records
Cases were tried from January 2021 through November 2023: 11 in 2021, 18 in 2022, and 21 in 2023. Together they are 3% of the 1,498 Army courts-martial in those years. The services were required to begin publishing trial records under Article 140a by December 2020, and Army records in this data are sparse before 2021.
The records give trial dates, not offense dates. They do not include the evidence, the plea terms, or anything resolved by nonjudicial punishment or administrative separation.
Dates and sources for the law changes mentioned here: UCMJ change timeline.
How We Counted
Every court-martial in the data tried at Fort Benning with a trial date in 2021–2023 (50 cases), compared with all 1,498 Army trials in those years. Dates are trial dates.
Source: public court-martial records (Article 140a, UCMJ) in Military Trial Results, data updated October 24, 2026. Definitions, sources, and known gaps: how this data was built. Errors: content@bodiesburied.com.
Related Analysis
- Fort Benning: Court-Martial Data and Trends (hub)
- Army Courts-Martial: Data and Trends (hub)
- By Installation (hub)
- Inside 37 Courts-Martial at Fort Benning, 2024–2026 (another period)
- Inside 39 Courts-Martial at Fort Knox, 2021–2023 (same years, similar size)
- What Was Tried at Fort Sill, 2021–2023? 37 Courts-Martial (same years, similar size)
- Camp Humphreys, 2020–2023: Charges, Verdicts, and Sentences in 69 Cases
- Fort Bliss, 2020–2023: Charges, Verdicts, and Sentences in 102 Cases
- Fort Bragg Courts-Martial, 2020–2023: What 143 Cases Show
- Fort Carson, 2024–2026: Charges, Verdicts, and Sentences in 45 Cases
- Search every case in Military Trial Results (members)
Military Judges Who Presided Over Cases at Fort Benning, 2021–2023
Names and links only. Each judge's record of pleas, findings, and sentences is on their Know Your Judge page, part of the Court-Martial Characters membership.
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.