How Navy-Marine Corps Orders Violation Cases Ended in 2022

Trends › By Offense › Article 92 › Navy-Marine Corps, 2022

Based on 63 cases · 2022 · Navy and Marine Corps records · data updated October 24, 2026

Contested Cases and Their Verdicts

Pleas were recorded for this group: 39 accused pleaded guilty and 24 contested at least one charge with a not-guilty or mixed plea. The contested share was 38%, compared with 33% across the service.

All 24 contested cases reached a verdict. 3 ended in a full acquittal, a 12% rate, lower than the 20% for all Navy and Marine Corps cases in 2022. Another 5 were partial acquittals: the accused was found not guilty of at least one charge or specification and convicted of another.

Most Terms Were Short

Of the 63 cases, 60 ended in a conviction on at least one charge, and 46 of those sentences included confinement (77%). The median confinement was 5 months, compared with 6 months across the service. A quarter of terms were 10 months or longer.

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

Sentence Lengths by Band

Under 6 months was the largest band, with 27 convictions (45%), higher than the 38% across the service. 14 convictions (23%) had no confinement, compared with 17%. The 6 months to 1 year band held 11 (18%), lower than the 25% across the service.

Terms longer than 1 year were less common than across all cases: 8 of 60 convictions (13%), compared with 20%. Of those, 6 (10%) were between 1 and 5 years and 2 (3%) were 5 years or more.

Fewer General Courts-Martial

Only 17 of the 63 cases were general courts-martial (27%), compared with 42% for all Navy and Marine Corps cases in 2022. The other 46 were special courts-martial. A special court-martial can impose no more than 1 year of confinement and cannot impose a dishonorable discharge.

The median confinement was 1.3 years at general courts-martial and 3 months at special courts-martial. The contested share was about the same at both levels: 35% at general courts-martial and 39% at special courts-martial.

Fewer Punitive Discharges Than the Service

Of 58 convicted enlisted members, 33 received a punitive discharge: 28 bad-conduct discharges and 5 dishonorable discharges. That is 57%, compared with 64% across the Navy and Marine Corps. No convicted officers appear in this group.

A sentence without a punitive discharge can still be followed by an administrative separation, which is not in these records.

A bad-conduct discharge can come from either court level. A dishonorable discharge requires a general court-martial. In this group, there were more bad-conduct discharges than dishonorable discharges.

Cases With a Second Disobedience Charge

Article 92 was the only charge in 10 of the 63 cases. In the other cases, Article 128 (assault) was charged in 11, Article 112a (drug) in 9, Article 134 (general article) in 8, and Article 131b (obstruction) and Article 90 (disobeying an officer) in 7 each.

In the cases that also charged Article 90, the accused faced 2 different disobedience offenses. In every case here, the sentence covers all of the charges together.

Change From 2021

There were 63 cases in 2022, compared with 88 in 2021. The contested share was 38% in both years. Full acquittals in contested cases that reached a verdict were 3 of 33 in 2021 and 3 of 24 in 2022. The median confinement was 5 months, compared with 6 months. Convictions with confinement were 77%, compared with 80%.

The punitive discharge share for enlisted members was 57%, compared with 63%. The general court-martial share was 27%, compared with 42%. In groups this size, a few cases can change these figures, so they show direction more than size.

Who Was Charged, and Where

Among the accused with rank recorded, 36 were junior enlisted members and 25 were NCOs. There were no officers. The accused were more senior than in all Navy and Marine Corps cases in 2022.

Camp Lejeune, North Carolina tried 10 of these cases, Camp Pendleton, California 8, San Diego, California and Norfolk, Virginia 7 each, and Okinawa, Japan 4. Together these locations account for 57% of the 63. Larger installations try more cases of every kind, so the counts do not by themselves point to a problem at any base.

What the Data Does Not Cover

The records give trial dates, not offense dates. They do not describe the evidence or plea terms. Orders violations handled by nonjudicial punishment or administrative separation are not in them.

A trial in 2022 may concern conduct from an earlier year. The sentences are adjudged sentences, so they do not reflect any later reduction through a plea-agreement cap, clemency, or appeal. The data cannot show why any accused chose to plead guilty or to contest.

For what the offense covers and how it is defended, see Article 92 on the law firm's website. Dates and sources for the law changes: 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.