What Changed at Twentynine Palms, California After 2019? 30 Cases vs. 47
Twentynine Palms, California held 47 courts-martial in 2019–2023, compared with 30 in 2017–2018. Orders violations (Article 92) were charged in 37% of cases with charges listed, compared with 18% across the Navy and Marine Corps.
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Trends › By Installation › Twentynine Palms, California › Before and after 2019
Short answer: Twentynine Palms, California held 47 courts-martial in 2019–2023, compared with 30 in 2017–2018. Orders violations (Article 92) were charged in 37% of cases with charges listed, compared with 18% across the Navy and Marine Corps. The punitive discharge rate for convicted enlisted members was 83% in the earlier period and 54% in the later one.
Orders Violations and False Statements
41 of the 47 records list the charges. Article 92 (failure to obey an order or regulation) was the most common charge, in 37% of cases. In the rest of the Navy and Marine Corps, the share was 18%. Article 107 (false official statements) appeared in 20% of cases, compared with 8%. Article 81 (conspiracy) appeared in 17%, compared with 7%.
Assault (Article 128) was charged less often: 17% of cases here, compared with 31% service-wide. Drug offenses (Article 112a) were charged in 34%, compared with 25%. Each article counts once per case, so a case with several charges appears in several rows.
| UCMJ Article | Cases | Share here | Share, the rest of the Navy and Marine Corps |
|---|---|---|---|
| Art. 92 Failure to obey order or regulation | 15 | 37% | 18% |
| Art. 112a Wrongful use, possession of controlled substances | 14 | 34% | 25% |
| Art. 134 General article | 9 | 22% | 18% |
| Art. 107 False official statements | 8 | 20% | 8% |
| Art. 81 Conspiracy | 7 | 17% | 7% |
| Art. 128 Assault | 7 | 17% | 31% |
| Art. 121 Larceny | 3 | 7% | 9% |
| Art. 86 AWOL | 3 | 7% | 5% |
Punitive Discharges in Each Period
In 2017–2018, 83% of convicted enlisted members received a punitive discharge. In 2019–2023, 20 of 37 did (54%). That is lower than the 63% for all Navy and Marine Corps cases. Of the 20, 16 were bad-conduct discharges and 4 were dishonorable discharges. Only a general court-martial can adjudge a dishonorable discharge.
No officers or warrant officers appear among the accused. A sentence without a punitive discharge does not rule out a later administrative separation. These records do not include administrative separations.
2017–2018 Compared With 2019–2023
The 2017–2018 records hold 30 cases over 2 years, about 15 a year. The later period had about 9 a year. The yearly counts were 10 in 2019, 10 in 2020, 14 in 2021, 6 in 2022, and 7 in 2023.
In the earlier period, every conviction included confinement (100%). In the later period, 78% did. The median confinement was 7 months in the earlier period and 8 months in the later one. The general court-martial share was 40% and 36%.
The contested shares cannot be compared, because plea data is missing for the earlier years. In groups this size, a few cases can change a percentage, so these changes show direction, not precision.
| 2017–2018 | 2019–2023 | |
|---|---|---|
| Cases | 30 | 47 |
| Contested (of pleas recorded) | — | 30% |
| Convictions with confinement | 100% | 78% |
| Median confinement | 7 months | 8 months |
| Punitive discharge (enlisted) | 83% | 54% |
| General courts-martial | 40% | 36% |
Confinement After a Conviction
78% of the 40 convictions included confinement. The median confinement was 8 months, compared with 6 months across the Navy and Marine Corps. A quarter of the sentences were 1.3 years or longer. These are adjudged sentences, before any plea-agreement cap, clemency, or appeal, and they cover every charge in a case.
8 of 40 convictions (20%) had confinement longer than one year, compared with 24% elsewhere. 22% had no confinement, compared with 17%.
Sentences differed by court level. At the 17 general courts-martial, 92% of convictions included confinement, and the median was 1.3 years. At the 30 special courts-martial, 70% of convictions included confinement, and the median was 3 months.
| Adjudged confinement | Convictions | Share here | Share, Navy and Marine Corps-wide |
|---|---|---|---|
| No confinement | 9 | 22% | 17% |
| Under 6 months | 14 | 35% | 35% |
| 6 months to 1 year | 9 | 22% | 24% |
| More than 1 year, under 5 years | 7 | 18% | 19% |
| 5 years or more | 1 | 2% | 5% |
Results on the Most Common Charges
All 15 cases that charged Article 92 ended in a conviction on that article. Article 134 had 9 convictions in 9 cases, and Article 107 had 8 in 8. Article 112a had 13 convictions in 14 cases.
The median confinement was 3 months for an Article 92 conviction, 4 months for Article 112a, 5 months for Article 107, and 1.6 years for Article 134. 1 case can include convictions on several of these articles, so the rows overlap.
| Article | Cases charging it | Convicted of it (share) | Median confinement when convicted of it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Art. 92 Failure to obey order or regulation | 15 | 15 (100%) | 3 months |
| Art. 112a Wrongful use, possession of controlled substances | 14 | 13 (93%) | 4 months |
| Art. 134 General article | 9 | 9 (9 of 9) | 1.6 years |
| Art. 107 False official statements | 8 | 8 (8 of 8) | 5 months |
Pleas
Only 20 of the 47 records list a plea. Navy and Marine Corps records before December 2020 often omit it. Of those 20, 14 accused pleaded guilty and 6 contested at least one charge with a not-guilty or mixed plea.
The contested share was 30%, about the same as the 31% service-wide. None of the 6 contested cases that reached a verdict ended in a full acquittal.
Rank and Court Level
The accused were 27 junior enlisted members (E-1 to E-4) and 10 NCOs (E-5 to E-9). That rank mix is more junior than the Navy and Marine Corps as a whole, where 64% were junior enlisted.
General courts-martial heard 17 of the 47 cases (36%), compared with 44% service-wide. A general court-martial can impose any lawful sentence. A special court-martial can adjudge no more than one year of confinement and no dishonorable discharge.
Parris Island and Yokosuka
Parris Island, South Carolina (44 cases) and Yokosuka, Japan (51 cases) held a similar number of cases in the same years. Twentynine Palms had the shortest median confinement of the 3: 8 months, compared with 11 months at Parris Island and 10 months at Yokosuka. It also had the lowest punitive discharge rate. Its contested share was the same as Parris Island's: 30%.
| Installation | Cases | Contested | Full acquittals (decided contested) | Median confinement | Punitive discharge (enlisted) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Twentynine Palms, California | 47 | 30% | 0 of 6 | 8 months | 54% |
| Parris Island, South Carolina | 44 | 30% | 0 of 6 | 11 months | 82% |
| Yokosuka, Japan | 51 | 22% | 4 of 11 | 10 months | 57% |
What the Records Do Not Show
The records do not include nonjudicial punishment, administrative separations, or cases closed with no action. They also do not show the evidence, the plea terms, or offense dates.
Dates and sources for the law changes mentioned here: UCMJ change timeline.
How We Counted
Every court-martial tried at Twentynine Palms, California in 2017–2018 (30) and 2019–2023 (47).
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
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Military Judges Who Presided Over Cases at Twentynine Palms, California, 2019–2023
Names and links only. Each judge's record of pleas, findings, and sentences is on their Know Your Judge page, part of the Court-Martial Characters membership.
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.