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# What Happens to Navy-Marine Corps NCOs (E-5 to E-9) Facing Disobeying An Officer Charges?
- URL: https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/navy-marine-corps-article-90-ncos/
- Published: 2026-10-28T08:19:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-28T08:40:09.000Z
- Description: From 2017–2025, NCOs (E-5 to E-9) were charged under Article 90 (disobeying an officer) in 26 Navy and Marine Corps courts-martial. NCOs contested 67% of the cases with a recorded plea, compared with 35% across all Navy and Marine Corps Article 90 cases.
- Author: Jocelyn C. Stewart
- Tags: Understanding Trends, Article 90, Navy-Marine Corps

[Trends](https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/) › [By Offense](https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/by-offense/) › [Article 90](https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/article-90-courts-martial/) › NCOs (E-5 to E-9)

**Short answer:** From 2017–2025, NCOs (E-5 to E-9) were charged under Article 90 (disobeying an officer) in 26 Navy and Marine Corps courts-martial. NCOs contested 67% of the cases with a recorded plea, compared with 35% across all Navy and Marine Corps Article 90 cases. Only 27% of those convicted received a punitive discharge, compared with 58% in the wider group.

Based on 26 cases · 2017–2025 · Navy and Marine Corps records · data updated October 24, 2026

## Most Cases Were Contested

NCOs contested these charges more often than the accused in the service's Article 90 cases overall. Of the 26 records, 18 list a plea: 12 were contested and 6 were guilty pleas. The contested share was 67%, compared with 35%.

A contested case is one where the accused pleads not guilty to at least one charge, either fully or through a mixed plea. Navy and Marine Corps records before December 2020 often omit the plea, so the share uses only the records that include one.

## No Contested Case Ended in a Full Acquittal

None of the 12 contested cases ended in a full acquittal. All 26 cases ended with a conviction on at least one charge. Across all Navy and Marine Corps Article 90 cases, the full acquittal rate was 4%.

Partial acquittals were common. In 5 of the contested cases, the court found the NCO not guilty of at least one charge or specification and guilty of another.

## Most Sentences Were Lighter

Only 14 of the 26 sentences included confinement (54%). The median confinement among those terms was 2 months, shorter than the 7 months for the service's Article 90 cases. The most common result was no confinement, in 12 convictions (46%), compared with 23% across the service.

Only 7 convicted NCOs received a punitive discharge, 27% compared with 58% for all Navy and Marine Corps Article 90 cases. 1 of those was dishonorable. A sentence without a punitive discharge does not rule out a later administrative separation.

## Some Terms Were Long

Not every sentence was short. A quarter of the confinement terms were 1.5 years or longer. Sentences over 1 year were in 5 of 26 convictions (19%), the same 19% as in the wider group.

No conviction here was in the 6 months to 1 year band, which held 25% of convictions across the service. Terms under 6 months were 35% of convictions, compared with 33%. The other terms were longer than 1 year. These are adjudged sentences, before any plea-agreement cap, clemency, or appeal.

| Adjudged confinement            | Convictions | Share here | Share, all Navy and Marine Corps Article 90 cases |
| ------------------------------- | ----------- | ---------- | ------------------------------------------------- |
| No confinement                  | 12          | 46%        | 23%                                               |
| Under 6 months                  | 9           | 35%        | 33%                                               |
| 6 months to 1 year              | 0           | 0%         | 25%                                               |
| More than 1 year, under 5 years | 4           | 15%        | 17%                                               |
| 5 years or more                 | 1           | 4%         | 2%                                                |

## What Else Was Charged

Article 90 was the only charge in 4 of the 26 cases. Article 92 (orders violation) was the most common other charge, in 12 cases. Article 128b (domestic violence, numbered since 2019) and Article 134 (general article) were each charged in 6, Article 128 (assault) in 5, and Article 86 (AWOL) in 3.

Each sentence covers every charge, so the long terms here cannot be tied to the disobedience charge alone. Several cases also included domestic violence or assault charges. The records do not divide a sentence among the charges.

## Most Cases Were Special Courts-Martial

General courts-martial were 31% of these cases (8 of 26). Special courts-martial tried the rest. Only a general court-martial can impose more than 1 year of confinement or a dishonorable discharge, so the terms over 1 year came from general courts-martial.

The accused here were more senior than the service's Article 90 accused as a whole, of whom 70% were junior enlisted members.

## Timing and Location

The count was small every year: 2 in 2017, 1 in 2018, 2 in 2019, 6 in 2020, 1 in 2021, 2 in 2022, 1 in 2023, 6 in 2024, and 5 in 2025.

Camp Pendleton, California tried 4 of the cases. San Diego, California, Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, and Norfolk, Virginia tried 3 each, and Quantico, Virginia tried 2\. These 5 installations account for 58% of the 26 cases. Larger installations try more cases of every kind. With counts this small, the totals say little about any one base.

## Rule Changes and Record Limits

Domestic violence, charged in 6 of these cases, has been a covered offense since December 28, 2023\. Special trial counsel decide whether to prosecute covered offenses. The records list trial dates rather than offense dates, so 2024 and 2025 trials include both old-rule and new-rule cases.

Matters resolved by nonjudicial punishment, administrative separation, or no action are not in these records. The records do not describe the evidence or plea terms. With 26 cases, a single outcome changes every percentage here.

For what the offense covers and how it is defended, see [Article 90 on the law firm's website](https://www.ucmj-defender.com/practice-areas/court-martial/article-90/?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 that charged NCOs (E-5 to E-9) under Article 90 (26 cases), compared with every Navy and Marine Corps Article 90 case.

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 90 (Willfully Disobeying Superior Officer): Court-Martial Data and Trends](https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/article-90-courts-martial/) (hub)
- [Navy-Marine Corps Courts-Martial: Data and Trends](https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/navy-marine-corps-courts-martial/) (hub)
- [What Happens to Army Junior Enlisted (E-1 to E-4) Facing Disobeying An Officer Charges?](https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/army-article-90-junior-enlisted/)
- [What Happens to Army NCOs (E-5 to E-9) Facing Disobeying An Officer Charges?](https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/army-article-90-ncos/)
- [Junior Enlisted (E-1 to E-4) Charged Under Article 90 in the Air Force](https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/air-force-article-90-junior-enlisted/)
- [Is Army Disobeying An Officer Prosecution Rising or Falling? Article 90, 2021–2025](https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/army-article-90-trend-2021-2025/)
- [Air Force Article 90 Cases by the Numbers, 2016–2025](https://www.bodiesburied.com/trends/air-force-article-90-trend-2016-2025/)
- [Article 90 explained on the law firm's website](https://www.ucmj-defender.com/practice-areas/court-martial/article-90/?ref=bodiesburied.com)
- [Search every case in Military Trial Results](https://www.bodiesburied.com/military-trial-results/) (members)

**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.