A Year of Courts-Martial at Fort Carson: 2021
Fort Carson's 30 courts-martial in 2021 had longer sentences and more punitive discharges than the Army as a whole. The median confinement was 9 months, compared with 6 months Army-wide. Of convicted enlisted members, 86% received a punitive discharge, compared with 70% Army-wide.
Understanding Trends in Military Practice · 6 min read
Trends › By Installation › Fort Carson › 2021
Short answer: Fort Carson's 30 courts-martial in 2021 had longer sentences and more punitive discharges than the Army as a whole. The median confinement was 9 months, compared with 6 months Army-wide. Of convicted enlisted members, 86% received a punitive discharge, compared with 70% Army-wide.
Confinement in Most Convictions
Of the 29 convictions, 93% included confinement. Only 2 carried none (7%), compared with 19% across the Army. The median confinement was 9 months, and a quarter of sentences were 3.3 years or longer.
Sentences of 5 years or more made up 17% of convictions, compared with 8% in all Army cases that year. In total, 10 of 29 convictions (34%) carried more than one year, compared with 26%.
Each figure is an adjudged sentence: the term set at trial, before any plea-agreement cap, clemency, or appeal. Each covers every charge in the case. Only a general court-martial can impose more than one year of confinement.
| Adjudged confinement | Convictions | Share here | Share, all Army cases in those years |
|---|---|---|---|
| No confinement | 2 | 7% | 19% |
| Under 6 months | 11 | 38% | 37% |
| 6 months to 1 year | 6 | 21% | 17% |
| More than 1 year, under 5 years | 5 | 17% | 18% |
| 5 years or more | 5 | 17% | 8% |
Punitive Discharges for 86% of the Convicted
For enlisted members, a punitive discharge means a bad-conduct or dishonorable discharge. At Fort Carson, 86% of convicted enlisted members received one: 19 bad-conduct and 6 dishonorable discharges. Across the Army, the share was 70%.
No officers appear among the accused. A sentence without a punitive discharge does not rule out an administrative separation after the case.
The General Article Was the Most Common Charge
Charges are listed in all 30 records, and a case with several articles appears in several rows. Article 134 (general article) was the most common charge, in 9 cases (30%), compared with 21% in the Army as a whole.
Some of the Army's most frequent charges were less common here. Article 120 (sexual assault) was charged in 17% of cases, compared with 29%. Article 128 (assault) was charged in 27%, compared with 38%. Article 128b (domestic violence) was charged in 10%, compared with 6%.
Several other articles were each charged in 3 cases (10%): Article 80 (attempts, 9% Army-wide), Article 112a (drug offenses, 12%), Article 92 (orders violations, 16%), and Article 107 (false official statements, 12%). With counts this small, a single case changes a share noticeably.
| UCMJ Article | Cases | Share here | Share, the Army as a whole |
|---|---|---|---|
| Art. 134 General article | 9 | 30% | 21% |
| Art. 128 Assault | 8 | 27% | 38% |
| Art. 120 Rape and sexual assault | 5 | 17% | 29% |
| Art. 80 Attempts | 3 | 10% | 9% |
| Art. 112a Wrongful use, possession of controlled substances | 3 | 10% | 12% |
| Art. 92 Failure to obey order or regulation | 3 | 10% | 16% |
| Art. 128b Domestic violence | 3 | 10% | 6% |
| Art. 107 False official statements | 3 | 10% | 12% |
Outcomes on the Top Charges
All 8 cases charging assault ended in a conviction on Article 128, with a median confinement of 10 months. Article 134 charges led to a conviction on that article in 7 of 9 cases, and those convictions carried a median of 2 years.
A single case can include a conviction on one article and an acquittal on another, so these rows overlap. The medians reflect the full sentence in each case, not a term for the listed article alone.
| Article | Cases charging it | Convicted of it (share) | Median confinement when convicted of it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Art. 134 General article | 9 | 7 (7 of 9) | 2 years |
| Art. 128 Assault | 8 | 8 (8 of 8) | 10 months |
Few Cases Were Contested
A case is contested when the accused pleads not guilty to at least one charge. Of 30 accused, 24 pleaded guilty and 6 contested, a contested share of 20%, compared with 36% in the Army as a whole. Every guilty plea is recorded with a plea agreement. Army records show only that an agreement existed.
The accused usually chooses whether a military judge alone or a panel of members decides guilt. A judge alone heard 27 cases, an enlisted panel 2, and an officer panel 1. Members heard 10% of cases, compared with 22% Army-wide. This split mostly follows how few cases were contested.
Rank and Court Level
The accused were 22 junior enlisted soldiers and 8 NCOs, with no officers, a more junior group than across the Army.
General courts-martial made up 83% of cases (25 of 30). A general court-martial can impose any lawful sentence, including long confinement and a dishonorable discharge. A special court-martial caps confinement at one year and cannot impose a dishonorable discharge.
Fort Bliss and Wheeler Army Airfield
Fort Bliss and Wheeler Army Airfield also tried 30 cases in 2021. These installations differed in several ways. Fort Carson had the lowest contested share, 20%, compared with 33% at Fort Bliss and 47% at Wheeler Army Airfield. It also had the fewest full acquittals: 1 of 6 contested cases that reached a verdict, compared with 3 of 10 and 5 of 13.
Fort Carson's median of 9 months was between Fort Bliss at 7 months and Wheeler Army Airfield at 1.1 years. Its enlisted punitive discharge share of 86% was the highest, compared with 73% and 55%.
| Installation | Cases | Contested | Full acquittals (decided contested) | Median confinement | Punitive discharge (enlisted) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fort Carson | 30 | 20% | 1 of 6 | 9 months | 86% |
| Fort Bliss | 30 | 33% | 3 of 10 | 7 months | 73% |
| Wheeler Army Airfield | 30 | 47% | 5 of 13 | 1.1 years | 55% |
What the 2021 Records Leave Out
The services had to begin publishing trial records under Article 140a by December 2020, and Army records in this data are sparse before 2021, so no earlier year is available for comparison. The records show charges, pleas, findings, and sentences. They do not show the evidence, the plea terms, offense dates, or conduct handled outside a court-martial.
Dates and sources for the law changes mentioned here: UCMJ change timeline.
How We Counted
Every court-martial tried at Fort Carson with a trial date in 2021 (30 cases).
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 Carson: Court-Martial Data and Trends (hub)
- By Year (hub)
- A Year of Courts-Martial at Fort Carson: 2022 (previous / next)
- Inside 76 Courts-Martial at Fort Carson, 2020–2023 (the whole period)
- A Year of Courts-Martial at Camp Humphreys: 2024
- A Year of Courts-Martial at Camp Humphreys: 2025
- A Year of Courts-Martial at Fort Benning: 2022
- A Year of Courts-Martial at Fort Benning: 2023
- A Year of Courts-Martial at Fort Benning: 2025
- Search every case in Military Trial Results (members)
Military Judges Who Presided Over Cases at Fort Carson, 2021
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.