What Was Tried at Moody AFB, Georgia, 2016–2018? 20 Courts-Martial
Moody AFB, Georgia tried 20 Air Force courts-martial from 2016 to 2018. Drug charges under Article 112a appeared in 63% of cases with charges listed, compared with 48% Air Force-wide.
Understanding Trends in Military Practice · 6 min read
Trends › By Installation › Moody AFB, Georgia › 2016–2018
Short answer: Moody AFB, Georgia tried 20 Air Force courts-martial from 2016 to 2018. Drug charges under Article 112a appeared in 63% of cases with charges listed, compared with 48% Air Force-wide. Only 1 case ended in a full acquittal (5%), compared with 20% across the Air Force, and 67% of convicted enlisted members received a punitive discharge, compared with 55%.
19 of 20 Cases Ended in a Conviction
Of the 20 cases at Moody, 19 ended in a conviction on at least one charge. Only 1 ended in a full acquittal (5%). Across all Air Force cases in those years, 20% ended in a full acquittal.
That rate uses all cases as its base, not only contested cases. Air Force records from 2016 to 2019 rarely list the plea when the accused pleaded guilty. For that reason, these records cannot show how many Moody cases were contested.
Punitive Discharges Were More Common
For enlisted members, a punitive discharge is a bad-conduct or dishonorable discharge. For officers, the equivalent is dismissal. At Moody, 67% of enlisted convictions included a punitive discharge: 9 bad-conduct and 3 dishonorable. Air Force-wide, the share was 55%.
The records list 1 convicted officer or warrant officer, who was sentenced to dismissal. A sentence without a punitive discharge does not rule out a later administrative separation, which these records do not track.
Drug Charges Were the Most Common
Charge lists cover 19 of the 20 cases, and a case with several articles appears under each one. Article 112a covers wrongful use and possession of controlled substances. It appeared in 12 cases (63%), compared with 48% Air Force-wide. Article 134 (general article) and Article 92 (failure to obey an order or regulation) appeared in 4 cases each (21%).
Several other articles appeared once each. They include Article 120 (rape and sexual assault), Article 85 (desertion), Article 127 (extortion), Article 121 (larceny), and Article 128 (assault). Article 128 appeared in 5% of cases here, compared with 11% across the Air Force. Air Force records rarely list charges in full acquittals, so these counts mostly describe cases that ended in a conviction.
| UCMJ Article | Cases | Share here | Share, Air Force-wide |
|---|---|---|---|
| Art. 112a Wrongful use, possession of controlled substances | 12 | 63% | 48% |
| Art. 134 General article | 4 | 21% | 25% |
| Art. 92 Failure to obey order or regulation | 4 | 21% | 16% |
| Art. 120 Rape and sexual assault | 1 | 5% | 9% |
| Art. 85 Desertion | 1 | 5% | 1% |
| Art. 127 Extortion | 1 | 5% | 0% |
| Art. 121 Larceny | 1 | 5% | 7% |
| Art. 128 Assault | 1 | 5% | 11% |
How Much Confinement?
Of 19 convictions, 17 included confinement. The median confinement was 4 months, the same as the 4 months for the whole Air Force. A quarter of the confinement sentences were 1.5 years or longer.
These are adjudged sentences, meaning the sentences announced at trial before any plea-agreement cap, clemency, or appeal. Each one covers every charge in the case. A long sentence covers all of the charges, not any single article.
Most Cases Were Special Courts-Martial
Only 5 of the 20 cases were general courts-martial (25%), compared with 47% for the Air Force as a whole. The rest were special courts-martial.
The court level sets what a sentence can include. A general court-martial can impose any lawful sentence, including long confinement and a dishonorable discharge or dismissal. A special court-martial caps confinement at one year. It can impose a bad-conduct discharge but not a dishonorable discharge.
Who Decided Guilt
At Moody, 35% of cases with the forum listed were decided by members. All 7 of those were officer panels, and there were 0 enlisted panels. A military judge alone decided the other 13.
Rank of the Accused
The accused were 15 junior enlisted members (E-1 to E-4), 4 NCOs (E-5 to E-9), and 1 officer or warrant officer. That mix is more junior than the Air Force as a whole, where 63% were junior enlisted.
Moody Compared With Similar Bases
Hill AFB, Utah (20 cases) and Dyess AFB, Texas (21 cases) tried a similar number of cases in the same years. Their median confinement was 6 months and 3 months, compared with 4 months at Moody. Their enlisted punitive discharge shares were 53% and 41%. Both were lower than the 67% at Moody.
The Moody cases were tried from April 2016 to December 2018: 5 in 2016, 4 in 2017, and 11 in 2018. They are 2% of the 991 Air Force courts-martial in those years. With this few cases, a single result changes every percentage on this page.
| Installation | Cases | Contested | Full acquittals (decided contested) | Median confinement | Punitive discharge (enlisted) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Moody AFB, Georgia | 20 | — | — | 4 months | 67% |
| Hill AFB, Utah | 20 | — | — | 6 months | 53% |
| Dyess AFB, Texas | 21 | — | — | 3 months | 41% |
Before the 2019 Rules, and Other Limits
These trials came before the Military Justice Act of 2016 took effect on January 1, 2019. That law set fixed panel sizes, created judge-alone special courts-martial capped at six months with no punitive discharge, and introduced written plea agreements. None of those changes applied to the cases here.
Trial records show the charges, pleas, findings, and sentence. They do not show the evidence, the plea terms, the offense dates, or conduct handled outside a court-martial, such as nonjudicial punishment. Air Force records never report plea agreements.
Dates and sources for the law changes mentioned here: UCMJ change timeline.
How We Counted
Every court-martial in the data tried at Moody AFB, Georgia with a trial date in 2016–2018 (20 cases), compared with all 991 Air Force 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
- Moody AFB, Georgia: Court-Martial Data and Trends (hub)
- Air Force Courts-Martial: Data and Trends (hub)
- By Installation (hub)
- Moody AFB, Georgia Courts-Martial, 2019–2023: What 17 Cases Show (another period)
- Inside 20 Courts-Martial at Hill AFB, Utah, 2016–2018 (same years, similar size)
- Dyess AFB, Texas Courts-Martial, 2016–2018: What 21 Cases Show (same years, similar size)
- Andersen AFB, Guam Courts-Martial, 2016–2018: What 13 Cases Show
- Aviano AB, Italy Courts-Martial, 2016–2018: What 16 Cases Show
- Aviano AB, Italy, 2019–2023: Charges, Verdicts, and Sentences in 17 Cases
- Barksdale AFB, Louisiana, 2016–2018: Charges, Verdicts, and Sentences in 27 Cases
- Search every case in Military Trial Results (members)
Military Judges Who Presided Over Cases at Moody AFB, Georgia, 2016–2018
- W. Shane Cohen
- Bryon T. Gleisner
- Patricia A. Gruen
- Ryan A. Hendricks
- Andrew Kalavanos
- J. Wesley Moore
- Bradley A. Morris
- Jennifer E. Powell
- Lyndell M. Powell
- Shaun S. Speranza
- Matthew S. Ward
- Charles G. Warren
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.