Marine Corps Base Hawaii, Kaneohe Bay vs. Bremerton, Washington: Two Navy-Marine Corps Installations Side by Side, 2024–2026

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Based on 53 cases · 2024–2026 · Navy and Marine Corps records · data updated October 24, 2026

Punitive Discharges at the Two Installations

A punitive discharge is a bad-conduct discharge or a dishonorable discharge for an enlisted member. For an officer, the equivalent is a dismissal. At Kaneohe Bay, 34 of 49 convicted enlisted members received a punitive discharge: 22 bad-conduct discharges and 12 dishonorable discharges. That is 69%, compared with 33% at Bremerton.

2 convicted officers or warrant officers appear in the Kaneohe Bay records, and 1 was dismissed. A sentence without a punitive discharge does not rule out a later administrative separation, and those separations are not in these records.

Confinement After Conviction

52 cases at Kaneohe Bay ended in a conviction, and 67% of those sentences included confinement. The median confinement was 7 months, compared with 3 months at Bremerton.

No confinement was the most common result in both places: 33% of convictions at Kaneohe Bay and 44% at Bremerton. Longer terms were more common at Kaneohe Bay. 13 of 52 convictions (25%) carried more than one year, compared with 16% at Bremerton. Sentences of 5 years or more were 10% of convictions at Kaneohe Bay and 2% at Bremerton.

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

General and Special Courts-Martial

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. Only a general court-martial can adjudge more than one year of confinement.

At Kaneohe Bay, 19 of the 53 cases were general courts-martial (36%), compared with 35% at Bremerton. In those 19 cases, 89% of convictions included confinement, and the median was 2 years. In the 34 special courts-martial, 55% of convictions included confinement, and the median was 3 months.

Few Full Acquittals at Kaneohe Bay

A case is contested when the accused pleads not guilty to at least one charge. 51 of the 53 Kaneohe Bay records list the plea. 35 were guilty pleas and 16 were contested, a contested share of 31%. At Bremerton the contested share was 33%.

1 of the 16 contested cases that reached a verdict at Kaneohe Bay ended in a full acquittal (6%). At Bremerton, 6 of 17 did (35%). Another 7 contested cases at Kaneohe Bay ended in a partial acquittal, meaning not guilty of at least one charge or specification but guilty of another.

Which Articles Were Charged?

All 53 records list the charges. A case that charges several articles counts once under each one. Article 92, failure to obey an order or regulation, was the most common charge, in 13 cases (25%), compared with 17% at Bremerton.

Article 80, attempts, appeared in 17% of Kaneohe Bay cases and 2% of Bremerton cases. Article 128b, domestic violence, appeared in 17% here and 8% at Bremerton. Two charges were less common at Kaneohe Bay: Article 121, larceny (11% compared with 17%), and Article 134, the general article (17% compared with 21%).

Conviction and Confinement by Charge

All 13 cases charging Article 92 ended in a conviction on that article, with a median confinement of 3 months. Article 80, Article 134, and Article 128b each ended in a conviction on that article in 9 of 9 cases. These are small counts.

The median confinement when the conviction included Article 134 was 6 years. It was 2.5 years for Article 80 and 9 months for Article 128b. One case can include several of these articles, so the rows overlap.

Rank of the Accused

Junior enlisted members (E-1 to E-4) were 65% of the accused at Kaneohe Bay. NCOs were 31%, and officers were 4%. At Bremerton, junior enlisted members were 42% of the accused, so the Kaneohe Bay group was more junior.

Case Counts and the Rules in These Years

The records run from January 2024 to September 2026. Kaneohe Bay had 25 cases in 2024, 16 in 2025, and 12 in 2026. The 2026 count is a partial year. The two installations tried a similar number of cases, so this page compares shares, not counts.

Since December 28, 2023, special trial counsel, not commanders, decide whether to prosecute covered offenses such as sexual assault, domestic violence, and murder. When every guilty finding in a case is for an offense after December 27, 2023, the military judge sets the sentence within new sentencing parameters. Both rules depend on the offense date. These records do not give offense dates, so trials from 2024 on include cases under both the old and the new rules.

What These Records Leave Out

The trial records show charges, pleas, findings, and sentences. They do not show the evidence or the terms of any plea agreement. Conduct handled outside a court-martial is not included.

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.