What Happens If You Go AWOL or Desert in the Military
Going absent without leave or deserting are among the easiest offenses to prove under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The government needs only to show…
Notable courts-martial · Case studies
Court Martial
The archive
49 entriesThe Calvin Gibbs Court-Martial: Leader of the Maywand District “Kill Team”
What turns a battlefield killing from a lawful engagement into premeditated murder? The court-martial of Staff Sgt. Calvin Gibbs answered that question in the most literal…
What Happens If You Make a False Official Statement in the Military
A soldier slips off post for an afternoon to see a friend, gets back late, and is asked by his platoon sergeant where he went. The…
The Bryan Howard Court-Martial: The Accessory at Mahmudiyah
Five soldiers were charged in connection with the March 12, 2006 rape and murder of 14-year-old Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi and the killing of her mother,…
The Javal Davis Court-Martial: Abu Ghraib and a Guilty Plea
The Abu Ghraib prosecutions produced a wide spread of outcomes for soldiers who guarded the same tier of the same prison. Charles Graner, who fought his…
The Bowe Bergdahl Court-Martial: Desertion, Captivity, and a Contested Sentence
A soldier who spent nearly five years as a prisoner of the Taliban still walked into a court-martial as a defendant. That single fact captures why…
The Ernest Medina Court-Martial: Command Responsibility After My Lai
When a war crime is committed by the troops on the ground, how far up the chain of command does criminal liability climb? The 1971 court-martial…
What Happens If You Steal Military Property
A supply sergeant runs a routine inventory and a set of night vision goggles does not reconcile. A first-line leader spots a government drill in the…
What Happens If You Get a DUI in the Military
The flashing lights in your rearview mirror mean one thing to a civilian and something larger to a service member. A civilian driver stopped for impaired…
The Lynndie England Court-Martial: Abu Ghraib, the Photographs, and Diminished Capacity
Few defendants in modern military justice have argued more openly that someone else made them do it. Private First Class Lynndie England, photographed at Abu Ghraib…
The Chelsea Manning Court-Martial: The Largest Leak in U.S. History
The single most important thing this case decided was not how long the sentence would be. It was a line between two crimes that look identical…
The Nidal Hasan Court-Martial: The Fort Hood Shooting and a Death Sentence
The court-martial of Major Nidal Malik Hasan is the rare modern military case that ran all the way to a death sentence, and it shows what…
The James Barker Court-Martial: A Guilty Plea, Mitigation at Sentencing, and 90 Years
A guilty plea does not end a court-martial. It opens a second proceeding, the sentencing hearing, where the only question left is how much punishment the…
The Charles Graner Court-Martial: The Abu Ghraib Ringleader and the “Orders” Defense
Can a soldier escape responsibility for abusing prisoners by saying that intelligence officers told him to do it? That was the central legal question in the…
What Happens If You’re Accused of Sexual Assault in the Military
The accusation lands before the evidence does. A report is made, your command is notified within hours, and the machinery of a military sexual assault case…
The Paul Cortez Court-Martial: Mahmudiyah and Felony Murder
How does a soldier end up convicted of murdering four people he never shot? Sergeant Paul E. Cortez did not fire the rifle that killed the…
The Michael Behenna Court-Martial: Self-Defense, Murder, and a Pardon
Self-defense is the most intuitive defense in all of criminal law: a person who reasonably fears for his life may use force to save it. The…
The Eddie Slovik Court-Martial: The Only American Executed for Desertion Since the Civil War
More than 21,000 American servicemen were convicted of desertion during World War II. Forty-nine of them received death sentences. One was actually shot. Private Eddie Slovik,…
The Sabrina Harman Court-Martial: Documenting Abuse and the Limits of “Just a Witness”
Can a soldier who says she was only documenting abuse, not inflicting it, still be a criminal? Specialist Sabrina Harman took many of the most notorious…
The Arthur Walker Espionage Case: The Brother in the Ring
Arthur Walker had been out of the Navy for seven years when he started spying, and he never spent a day of that spying in uniform.…
What Happens If You Commit Adultery or Fraternize in the Military
A platoon sergeant starts answering a junior soldier's texts at midnight. A married officer ends up at a hotel with someone else's spouse after a unit…
What Happens If You Fail a Drug Test in the Military
The notification usually arrives without warning. A commander calls a service member in and explains that a urine sample collected weeks earlier came back positive for…
What Happens If You Leak Classified Information in the Military
Whatever the reason that seemed compelling at the moment of disclosure, whistleblowing, conscience, anger, or simple carelessness, the law that follows draws almost none of its…
The Eddie Gallagher Court-Martial: Acquittal, a Photograph, and a Presidential Reversal
What does a military jury do when the government's own witness, testifying under a grant of immunity, suddenly confesses to the killing the defendant is charged…