What Was Tried at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, 2013–2018? 83 Courts-Martial
From 2013–2018, 83 cases at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii reached a court-martial. Article 128 (assault) was charged in 46% of cases, compared with 37% in the rest of the Navy and Marine Corps.
Understanding Trends in Military Practice · 6 min read
Trends › By Installation › Pearl Harbor, Hawaii › 2013–2018
Short answer: From 2013–2018, 83 cases at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii reached a court-martial. Article 128 (assault) was charged in 46% of cases, compared with 37% in the rest of the Navy and Marine Corps. 9 of 26 contested cases that reached a verdict (35%) ended in a full acquittal, compared with 46% across all Navy and Marine Corps cases.
More NCOs Than Junior Enlisted Accused
The accused at Pearl Harbor were more senior than elsewhere. Of the 83 accused, 45 were NCOs (E-5 to E-9), 33 were junior enlisted members (E-1 to E-4), and 5 were officers or warrant officers. Across the rest of the Navy and Marine Corps, junior enlisted members made up 56% of the accused.
General courts-martial made up 55% of cases (46 of 83). A general court-martial can impose long confinement and a dishonorable discharge. The rest were special courts-martial. A special court-martial caps confinement at one year and cannot impose a dishonorable discharge.
Assault and Sexual Assault Charges Were More Common
Charges are listed in 82 of the 83 records, and each article counts once per case. Article 128 (assault) appeared in 46% of cases, compared with 37% across the Navy and Marine Corps. Article 120 (rape and sexual assault) appeared in 28%, compared with 22%. Article 134 (general article) appeared in 20%, compared with 13%. Article 80 (attempts) appeared in 13%, compared with 8%.
Some charges were less common than elsewhere. Article 92 (orders violation) appeared in 6% of cases, compared with 15%. Article 112a (drug) appeared in 17%, compared with 23%.
| UCMJ Article | Cases | Share here | Share, all Navy and Marine Corps cases in those years |
|---|---|---|---|
| Art. 128 Assault | 38 | 46% | 37% |
| Art. 120 Rape and sexual assault | 23 | 28% | 22% |
| Art. 134 General article | 16 | 20% | 13% |
| Art. 112a Wrongful use, possession of controlled substances | 14 | 17% | 23% |
| Art. 80 Attempts | 11 | 13% | 8% |
| Art. 107 False official statements | 11 | 13% | 12% |
| Art. 120b Rape and sexual assault of a child | 8 | 10% | 8% |
| Art. 131b Obstruction, numbered since 2019 | 5 | 6% | 4% |
Which Cases Were Contested?
Overall, 57 cases ended in guilty pleas and 26 had a not-guilty or mixed plea. A case is contested when the accused pleads not guilty to at least one charge. The 31% contested share here is about the same as the 29% elsewhere in the service.
Pleas differed by charge. Cases charging Article 134 ended in a guilty plea 81% of the time (13 of 16), the most among the top charges. Cases charging Article 120 ended in a guilty plea 39% of the time (9 of 23). The records do not show why an accused pleaded guilty or contested the charges.
Results in Contested Cases
Of 26 contested cases that reached a verdict, 9 ended in a full acquittal. 3 ended in a partial acquittal: not guilty of at least one charge or specification, but guilty of another. The 35% full-acquittal rate is lower than the 46% across the Navy and Marine Corps.
Navy and Marine Corps records before December 2020 often omit the plea, so the plea counts here use only the records that list them.
Convictions and Sentences, Article by Article
Every case charging Article 134 ended in a conviction on that article (16 of 16), with a median confinement of 1.6 years. Article 112a ended in a conviction on that article in 13 of 14 cases, with a median of 3 months. Article 128 did so in 32 of 38, with a median of 6 months. Article 120 did so in 18 of 23, with a median of 8 months. That was the lowest rate among the top charges.
A conviction on one article and an acquittal on another can happen in the same case, so these rows overlap. Each sentence covers every charge in the case.
| Article | Cases charging it | Convicted of it (share) | Median confinement when convicted of it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Art. 128 Assault | 38 | 32 (84%) | 6 months |
| Art. 120 Rape and sexual assault | 23 | 18 (78%) | 8 months |
| Art. 134 General article | 16 | 16 (100%) | 1.6 years |
| Art. 112a Wrongful use, possession of controlled substances | 14 | 13 (93%) | 3 months |
How Much Confinement Followed?
91% of the 74 convictions included confinement. The median confinement was 6 months, the same as across all Navy and Marine Corps cases. A quarter of the sentences were 1.2 years or longer. These are adjudged sentences, before any plea-agreement cap, clemency, or appeal.
17 of 74 convictions (23%) carried more than one year of confinement, compared with 26% service-wide. Sentences of more than 1 year but under 5 years were 11% of convictions, compared with 18%. Sentences of 5 years or more were 12%, compared with 9%. The 46 general courts-martial had a median confinement of 1.1 years, and 41% were contested. The 37 special courts-martial had a median of 3 months, and 19% were contested.
| Adjudged confinement | Convictions | Share here | Share, all Navy and Marine Corps cases in those years |
|---|---|---|---|
| No confinement | 7 | 9% | 12% |
| Under 6 months | 32 | 43% | 39% |
| 6 months to 1 year | 18 | 24% | 23% |
| More than 1 year, under 5 years | 8 | 11% | 18% |
| 5 years or more | 9 | 12% | 9% |
Punitive Discharges
Of 69 convicted enlisted members, 52 received a punitive discharge: 32 bad-conduct and 20 dishonorable. That rate of 75% is higher than the 64% across the Navy and Marine Corps. Among 5 convicted officers or warrant officers, 1 was dismissed.
A sentence without a punitive discharge does not rule out a later administrative separation, which these records do not cover.
Compared With Jacksonville and Washington, D.C.
Jacksonville, Florida (78 cases) and Washington, D.C. (76 cases) tried a similar number of cases. All 3 installations had a median confinement of 6 months. The contested share was 31% here, 21% at Jacksonville, and 39% in Washington, D.C. The enlisted punitive discharge rate was 75%, 66%, and 59%.
| Installation | Cases | Contested | Full acquittals (decided contested) | Median confinement | Punitive discharge (enlisted) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pearl Harbor, Hawaii | 83 | 31% | 9 of 26 | 6 months | 75% |
| Jacksonville, Florida | 78 | 21% | 4 of 16 | 6 months | 66% |
| Washington, D.C. | 76 | 39% | 13 of 29 | 6 months | 59% |
Years Covered and What the Records Cannot Show
The cases were tried from January 2013 to November 2018: 13 in 2013, 19 in 2014, 7 in 2015, 14 in 2016, 21 in 2017, and 9 in 2018. They were 4% of the 2,059 Navy and Marine Corps courts-martial in those years. All were tried before the Military Justice Act of 2016 took effect on January 1, 2019.
The records give trial dates, not offense dates. They do not show the evidence, the plea terms, or conduct handled outside a court-martial.
Dates and sources for the law changes mentioned here: UCMJ change timeline.
How We Counted
Every court-martial in the data tried at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii with a trial date in 2013–2018 (83 cases), compared with all 2,059 Navy and Marine Corps 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
- Pearl Harbor, Hawaii: Court-Martial Data and Trends (hub)
- Navy-Marine Corps Courts-Martial: Data and Trends (hub)
- By Installation (hub)
- Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, 2019–2023: Charges, Verdicts, and Sentences in 39 Cases (another period)
- What Was Tried at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, 2024–2026? 25 Courts-Martial (another period)
- Jacksonville, Florida, 2013–2018: Charges, Verdicts, and Sentences in 78 Cases (same years, similar size)
- What Was Tried at Washington, D.C., 2013–2018? 76 Courts-Martial (same years, similar size)
- General Article Cases at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii: 2013–2018 vs. 2019–2023
- Article 128 at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii Before and After 2019
- Search every case in 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. This analysis is for education and information only. It is not legal advice, and every case is different.