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# Not Guilty Pleas in Navy-Marine Corps Article 128 Cases: What Happened at Trial
- URL: https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/navy-marine-corps-article-128-acq-2017-2025/
- Published: 2026-10-28T06:33:18.000Z
- Updated: 2026-11-03T01:48:11.000Z
- Description: When Navy and Marine Corps service members pleaded not guilty to charges that included Article 128 (assault) from 2017–2025, 130 of 285 cases that reached a verdict ended in a full acquittal (46%), compared with 31% for all contested Navy and Marine Corps cases.
- Author: Jocelyn C. Stewart
- Tags: Understanding Trends, Article 128, Navy-Marine Corps

[Trends](https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/) › [By Offense](https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/by-offense/) › [Article 128](https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/article-128-courts-martial/) › Not Guilty Pleas in Navy-Marine Corps Ar

**Short answer:** When Navy and Marine Corps service members pleaded not guilty to charges that included Article 128 (assault) from 2017–2025, 130 of 285 cases that reached a verdict ended in a full acquittal (46%), compared with 31% for all contested Navy and Marine Corps cases. The median confinement after a conviction was 10 months, compared with 7 months for all contested cases.

Based on 285 cases · 2017–2025 · Navy and Marine Corps records · data updated October 24, 2026

## Full Acquittals in 130 Cases

This page looks only at contested Article 128 cases, those in which the accused pleaded not guilty to at least one charge. Of 285 such cases that reached a verdict, 130 ended in a full acquittal. That 46% full-acquittal rate is higher than the 31% for all contested Navy and Marine Corps cases in the same years.

Another 36 cases ended in a partial acquittal: not guilty of at least one charge or specification and guilty of another. In all, 155 cases ended in a conviction on at least one charge, a count that includes the partial acquittals.

## Assault Charged With Sexual Assault

Article 128 was the only charge in 52 of the 285 cases. Article 120 (sexual assault) was also charged in 159 cases, more than any other article. Next came Article 134 (general article) and Article 92 (orders violation) in 30 each, Article 80 (attempt) in 24, and Article 120b (child sexual abuse) in 22.

The verdicts and sentences on this page cover whole cases, not the assault charge alone. The records do not show whether an assault charge and a sexual assault charge describe the same incident.

## Longer Confinement After a Conviction

Of the 155 convictions, 109 included confinement (70%). The median confinement was 10 months, longer than the 7 months median for all contested Navy and Marine Corps cases. A quarter of the terms were 2.8 years or longer, and 1 was a life sentence.

Confinement longer than one year was more common than in all contested cases: 46 of 155 convictions (30%), compared with 24%. Terms of 5 years or more were 11% of convictions, compared with 8%. 30% of convictions had no confinement, compared with 34%. All of these are adjudged sentences, before any plea-agreement cap, clemency, or appeal. Each covers every charge in the case.

| Adjudged confinement            | Convictions | Share here | Share, all contested Navy and Marine Corps cases in those years |
| ------------------------------- | ----------- | ---------- | --------------------------------------------------------------- |
| No confinement                  | 46          | 30%        | 34%                                                             |
| Under 6 months                  | 40          | 26%        | 28%                                                             |
| 6 months to 1 year              | 23          | 15%        | 14%                                                             |
| More than 1 year, under 5 years | 29          | 19%        | 16%                                                             |
| 5 years or more                 | 17          | 11%        | 8%                                                              |

## Most Cases Were General Courts-Martial

199 of the 285 cases (70%) were general courts-martial, compared with 53% of all contested Navy and Marine Corps cases. 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.

The median confinement was 1.5 years at general courts-martial and 3 months at the 86 special courts-martial.

## Discharges About as Common as in Other Contested Cases

53% of enlisted convictions included a punitive discharge: 38 bad-conduct discharges and 36 dishonorable discharges. For all contested Navy and Marine Corps cases, the rate was 50%, about the same.

Of 9 convicted officers or warrant officers, 5 were dismissed. Dismissal is the officer equivalent of a punitive discharge. Members convicted without a punitive discharge could still be separated administratively. These records do not cover separations.

## Rank of the Accused

Junior enlisted members (E-1 to E-4) made up 50% of the accused, NCOs (E-5 to E-9) 42%, and officers 8%. For all contested Navy and Marine Corps cases, junior enlisted members were 49%, so the rank mix was about the same.

## Year by Year and Base by Base

The 285 cases were tried from January 2017 through December 2025\. The count was 31 in 2017, 34 in 2018, 36 in 2019, 30 in 2020, and 55 in 2021, then 24 in 2022, 27 in 2023, 22 in 2024, and 26 in 2025\. Navy and Marine Corps records before December 2020 often omit the plea, so this post includes only cases whose records list a not-guilty or mixed plea.

Norfolk, Virginia had the most cases (53), followed by San Diego, California (34), Bremerton, Washington (20), Mayport, Florida (20), and Pensacola, Florida (17). Together they account for 51% of the cases. Larger installations try more cases of every kind.

## Law Changes and Limits of the Records

The Military Justice Act of 2016 took effect on January 1, 2019\. Since December 28, 2023, special trial counsel decide whether to prosecute covered offenses. Assault is not one of them, but a special trial counsel can take an assault tied to a covered offense such as domestic violence. The records give trial dates, not offense dates. They cannot show which rules applied in a given case or whether any change affected these numbers.

The records also do not describe the evidence or plea terms. They omit nonjudicial punishment and administrative separations.

For what the offense covers and how it is defended, see [Article 128 on the law firm's website](https://www.ucmj-defender.com/practice-areas/court-martial/article-128/?ref=bodiesburied.com). Dates and sources for the law changes: [UCMJ change timeline](https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/ucmj-change-timeline/).

### How We Counted

Navy and Marine Corps courts-martial tried 2017–2025: where the accused contested a charge under Article 128 (assault) (285 cases), compared with all contested Navy and Marine Corps cases in those years.

Source: public court-martial records (Article 140a, UCMJ) in [Military Trial Results](https://www.bodiesburied.com/military-trial-results/), data updated October 24, 2026\. Definitions, sources, and known gaps: [how this data was built](https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/how-the-military-trial-results-data-was-built/). Errors: content@bodiesburied.com.

## Related Analysis

- [Article 128 (Assault): Court-Martial Data and Trends](https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/article-128-courts-martial/) (hub)
- [By Offense](https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/by-offense/) (hub)
- [Navy-Marine Corps Article 128 Cases by the Numbers, 2017–2025](https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/navy-marine-corps-article-128-trend-2017-2025/)
- [What Sentence Follows a Navy-Marine Corps Assault Conviction?](https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/navy-marine-corps-article-128-sent-2017-2025/)
- [Guilty Pleas in Navy-Marine Corps Assault Cases: How Often, and What Came Next](https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/navy-marine-corps-article-128-plea-2017-2025/)
- [How Often Are Contested Army Article 128 Cases Acquitted?](https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/army-article-128-acq-2021-2025/) (another service)
- [Fighting a Navy-Marine Corps AWOL Charge: How Contested Cases Ended](https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/navy-marine-corps-article-86-acq-2017-2025/)
- [Fighting a Navy-Marine Corps Child Sexual Abuse Charge: How Contested Cases Ended](https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/navy-marine-corps-article-120b-acq-2017-2025/)
- [Article 128 explained on the law firm's website](https://www.ucmj-defender.com/practice-areas/court-martial/article-128/?ref=bodiesburied.com)
- [Search every case in Military Trial Results](https://www.bodiesburied.com/military-trial-results/) (members)

**Compare: federal court.** [Aggravated Assault: Federal Sentences vs. Article 128 Courts-Martial, 2016–2025](https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/federal-aggravated-assault-vs-article-128/)

**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](https://www.ucmj-defender.com/?ref=bodiesburied.com). This analysis is for education and information only. It is not legal advice, and every case is different.