Officers Charged Under Article 128 in the Navy-Marine Corps

Trends › By Offense › Article 128 › Officers

Based on 39 cases · 2017–2025 · Navy and Marine Corps records · data updated October 24, 2026

Officers Contested More Often

A case is contested when the accused pleads not guilty to at least one charge, through a not-guilty plea or a mixed plea. 37 of the 39 records list a plea. Of those, 22 were contested and 15 were guilty pleas. That makes 59% contested.

For all Navy and Marine Corps Article 128 cases, the contested share was 41%. Navy and Marine Corps records before December 2020 often leave the plea blank, so these shares use only the records that list one.

Many Contested Cases Ended in Full Acquittal

Of the 22 contested cases that reached a verdict, 59% ended in a full acquittal. That rate is higher than the 46% for all Navy and Marine Corps Article 128 cases.

Another 2 cases ended in a partial acquittal: not guilty of at least one charge or specification and guilty of another. Those cases still ended with a sentence.

Longer Median Confinement

There were 26 convictions, and 16 of them included confinement. The median confinement was 1.1 years, longer than the 6 months for all Navy and Marine Corps Article 128 cases. A quarter of the confinement sentences were 8 years or longer, and 1 was a life sentence.

These figures are adjudged sentences: what the court announced at trial, before any plea-agreement cap, clemency, or appellate change. They cover every charge in the case, not only the assault charge.

No Confinement and Long Terms Were Both More Common

The most common result was no confinement: 10 of 26 convictions (38%), compared with 14% for all Navy and Marine Corps Article 128 cases. Terms under 6 months were less common here: 15% compared with 34%.

8 of 26 convictions (31%) included more than one year of confinement, compared with 27% for all Article 128 cases. Terms of 5 years or more were 15% of convictions here, compared with 9%.

Assault Was Usually Charged With Other Offenses

Only 13 of the 39 cases charged Article 128 by itself. In the service as a whole, 345 of 1036 Article 128 cases did so. The most common other charge was Article 120 (sexual assault), in 16 cases. Article 133 (conduct unbecoming) appeared in 9, Article 80 (attempt) and Article 120b (child sexual abuse) in 6 each, and Article 134 (general article) in 4.

The sentence figures above cover the whole case, not the assault charge alone. The records do not show whether an assault charge and a sexual offense charge describe the same incident.

Most Cases Were General Courts-Martial

Of the 39 cases, 29 were general courts-martial and 10 were special courts-martial. The general court-martial share, 74%, compares with 52% for all Navy and Marine Corps Article 128 cases. A general court-martial can impose any lawful sentence, including long confinement and, for officers, dismissal. A special court-martial is capped at one year of confinement.

At general courts-martial, 70% of cases were contested and the median confinement was 1.1 years. At special courts-martial, 30% were contested.

Year by Year and Base by Base

The yearly count was small in every year: 6 in 2017, 4 in 2018, 6 in 2019, 5 in 2020, 6 in 2021, 5 in 2022, 2 in 2023, 2 in 2024, and 3 in 2025. The records run from January 2017 to October 2025.

Norfolk, Virginia, had the most of these cases, with 9. Washington, D.C., Bremerton, Washington, and San Diego, California, had 3 each, and Camp Pendleton, California, had 2. Together, those five installations account for 51% of the 39 cases. Larger installations try more cases of all kinds, so a high count does not by itself show a problem at any base.

Law Changes in the Same Period

The Military Justice Act of 2016 took effect on January 1, 2019, bringing fixed panel sizes and written plea agreements. Since December 28, 2023, special trial counsel decide whether to prosecute covered offenses such as sexual assault and domestic violence. Assault under Article 128 is not itself covered, but it can be taken along with a related covered offense.

Which rules applied depends on the offense date, and these records give only trial dates. Cases tried from 2024 on include both old-rule and new-rule cases.

What the Records Do Not Show

These are only the cases that went to court-martial. Officer misconduct handled through nonjudicial punishment, administrative action, or no action does not appear. The records say nothing about the evidence or the terms of any plea agreement. With only 39 cases, a few results can change any percentage here by a noticeable amount.

For what the offense covers and how it is defended, see Article 128 on the law firm's website. Dates and sources for the law changes: UCMJ change timeline.

Compare: federal court. Aggravated Assault: Federal Sentences vs. Article 128 Courts-Martial, 2016–2025

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.