What Changed at Fort Drum After 2024? 72 Cases vs. 45

Trends › By Installation › Fort Drum › Before and after 2024

Based on 45 cases · 2024–2026 · Army records · data updated October 24, 2026

95% of Convicted Enlisted Members Received a Punitive Discharge

In 2024–2026, 95% of convicted enlisted members at Fort Drum received a punitive discharge: 28 bad-conduct discharges and 10 dishonorable discharges. Across the rest of the Army, the share was 73%. At Fort Drum in 2020–2023, it was 63%.

A punitive discharge is the bad-conduct or dishonorable discharge a court-martial can adjudge for an enlisted member. A sentence without one does not rule out a later administrative separation. Those proceedings are not in these records.

Fewer Contested Cases

In the earlier period, 43% of cases with a plea recorded were contested, meaning the accused pleaded not guilty to at least one charge. Since 2024, the share is 11%: 40 guilty pleas and 5 not-guilty or mixed pleas. Across the Army, the share was 21%.

Plea agreements appear in 39 of the 40 guilty pleas, and 1 has no entry. Army records say whether an agreement was made but not what it contained. Among the leading charges, every case charging Article 134 (13 of 13) and every case charging Article 128b (15 of 15) ended in a guilty plea. The records do not show why an accused pleaded guilty or contested the charges.

2020–2023 Compared With 2024–2026

The 2020–2023 period had 72 cases over 4 years, about 18 a year, compared with about 15 a year since, counting full years only. The median confinement increased from 6 months to 11 months. The share of convictions with confinement increased from 77% to 88%. The general court-martial share increased from 76% to 89%.

Full acquittals in contested cases that reached a verdict went from 12 of 28 to 3 of 4. The later figure is based on only 4 cases. A few cases can change any of these percentages.

Longer Confinement Than Army-Wide

Of 40 convictions, 35 included confinement. The median confinement was 11 months, compared with 6 months for the Army. A quarter of terms were 1.7 years or more. Of the convictions, 5 carried no confinement (12%), compared with 15% Army-wide.

Sentences above one year were imposed in 13 of 40 convictions (32%), close to the 30% for the Army as a whole. Sentences of 6 months to 1 year were 25% of convictions here, compared with 17% Army-wide. All of these are sentences as adjudged at trial, before any plea-agreement cap, clemency, or appeal. They cover every charge in a case.

Domestic Violence Was the Most Common Charge

Charge lists cover 43 of the 45 cases. Article 128b (domestic violence) was charged in 35% of them, compared with 25% in the rest of the Army. Article 134 (the general article) was charged in 30%, compared with 21%. Article 120b (rape and sexual assault of a child) was charged in 14%, compared with 8%. Article 90 (willfully disobeying a superior officer) was charged in 12%, compared with 6%.

Article 128 (assault) was less common, charged in 9% of cases compared with 20% Army-wide. A case with several articles appears under each.

Results for the 2 Leading Charges

All 15 cases charging Article 128b ended in a conviction on that article, The median confinement for those convictions was 8 months. All 13 cases charging Article 134 also ended in a conviction on that article, with a median of 1.5 years.

Most Cases Were Judge-Alone Trials

The accused usually chooses whether guilt is decided by a military judge alone or by a panel of members. At Fort Drum, members heard 9% of cases with the forum listed: 3 enlisted panels and 1 officer panel. The other 41 cases went to a judge alone. Because most judge-alone cases are guilty pleas, this split largely follows the low contested share.

Court Level, Rank, and Comparable Posts

General courts-martial made up 89% of the 44 cases with a court level listed (39 of 44). The court level is not listed for 1 case. A general court-martial can impose any lawful sentence, including long confinement and a dishonorable discharge. A special court-martial is limited to one year of confinement. The accused were 32 junior enlisted members (E-1 to E-4), 12 NCOs (E-5 to E-9), and 1 officer or warrant officer, a more junior group than Army-wide, where 53% were junior enlisted.

Fort Carson and Kaiserslautern (Europe) each tried 45 cases in the same years. Fort Drum differed from both. Its contested share was 11%, compared with 40% and 20%. Its median confinement was 11 months, compared with 4 months and 5 months. Its enlisted punitive discharge share was 95%, compared with 78% and 79%.

Rule Changes and What Is Missing

The data runs from January 2024 through July 2026: 10 cases in 2024, 20 in 2025, and 15 in the partial year 2026. Since December 28, 2023, special trial counsel rather than commanders decide whether covered offenses such as sexual assault, domestic violence, and murder are prosecuted. New sentencing parameters apply when every guilty finding is for an offense after December 27, 2023. With only trial dates on record, the data cannot tell which rules governed a given case or whether the rules affected these results.

The evidence, plea terms, and anything handled outside a court-martial are not part of these records.

Dates and sources for the law changes mentioned here: 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.