Missing movement is a distinct offense under Article 87 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. A common question for service members and their counsel is whether failing to make more than one scheduled movement can be charged as several separate offenses, or whether the events must be combined into a single charge. The general answer is that multiple missed movements can be charged separately when they involve genuinely distinct movements, but the way those charges are framed is subject to important limits rooted in the elements of the offense and in the military law of multiplicity and unreasonable multiplication of charges. This article explains how those principles work together.
What counts as a movement under Article 87
Article 87 punishes a person who, through neglect or design, misses the movement of a ship, aircraft, or unit with which the person is required in the course of duty to move. The offense is built around a specific, identifiable movement. Not every change of location qualifies. Military courts have understood “movement” to mean a substantial scheduled relocation, such as a deployment, a ship getting underway, or a unit moving as part of an operation, rather than a routine, local, or administrative shift. Whether a particular event is a “movement” is itself an element the government must prove.
This matters for the question of separate charges because the answer depends on identifying how many qualifying movements actually existed. Each charge of missing movement must point to a real, distinct movement that the accused was required to make and failed to make.
When separate charges are appropriate
If a service member is required to make two genuinely separate movements at different times, and misses each one, those are conceptually two offenses. Each missed movement has its own set of elements: a specific movement, a duty to move with it, the accused’s knowledge of the prospective movement, and the failure to be present through neglect or design. Because the elements are satisfied independently for each event, the government may, as a structural matter, charge each missed movement as its own specification.
A clear example would be a sailor who misses the ship getting underway on one date and then, after the ship returns and prepares to deploy again weeks later, misses that second sailing as well. Two distinct movements, two distinct duties to move, two distinct failures. Charging these separately reflects the reality that two separate offenses occurred.
When separate charges become improper
The harder problem arises when the government tries to slice a single failure into multiple specifications, or piles on overlapping charges arising from one underlying event. Military law guards against this in two related ways.
The first is multiplicity, which is grounded in the constitutional protection against double jeopardy. Charges are multiplicious when one offense is necessarily included in another, so that punishing both would punish the accused twice for the same conduct. If two specifications really describe the same missed movement, charging them as separate offenses is improper.
The second, and broader, doctrine is unreasonable multiplication of charges. Even when offenses are technically separate and not multiplicious, military courts will not allow the government to exaggerate a single transaction by needlessly fragmenting it into many charges. The Rules for Courts-Martial permit a military judge to consolidate or dismiss charges that unreasonably multiply the accused’s exposure. Courts examine whether each charge is aimed at distinct criminal conduct, whether the charges misrepresent or exaggerate the accused’s criminality, whether they unreasonably increase the punishment exposure, and whether there is any sign of prosecutorial overreaching.
Applied to missing movement, this means the government cannot take one missed deployment and convert it into several charges by relabeling the same failure, or by tacking on duplicative theories that all flow from the same nonappearance.
The relationship to related offenses
A single episode of not being where one is supposed to be can implicate more than one article. Failing to be present can support an unauthorized absence charge under Article 86, while the failure to make a specific required movement supports an Article 87 charge. Whether both may stand depends on whether they punish distinct wrongs or merely restate the same conduct. Counsel should examine whether an unauthorized absence specification and a missing movement specification arising from the same underlying failure represent genuinely separate offenses or an unreasonable multiplication. The fact that the same absence underlies both is exactly the kind of overlap that the unreasonable multiplication doctrine is designed to police.
Practical guidance for the accused
For a service member facing several missing movement specifications, the analysis proceeds in steps. First, identify each alleged movement and confirm it was a genuine, distinct, qualifying movement rather than a routine relocation. Second, determine whether the specifications point to truly separate movements at separate times or whether they carve up a single event. Third, evaluate whether any specifications are multiplicious because one is included within another. Fourth, consider whether the overall charging, even if technically permissible, unreasonably multiplies charges and should be consolidated or dismissed.
The strategic value of these challenges is real. Reducing the number of separately punishable offenses can substantially lower the maximum punishment exposure and can prevent a single lapse from being presented to the factfinder as a pattern of repeated misconduct.
Conclusion
Multiple missed movements can be charged as separate offenses under the UCMJ, but only when they correspond to genuinely distinct movements that the accused was independently required to make. When the government tries to break one missed movement into several charges, or to layer overlapping charges onto a single failure, the doctrines of multiplicity and unreasonable multiplication of charges provide grounds to consolidate or dismiss. The decisive question is always whether each charge captures a separate criminal act or simply repeats the same one.
Disclaimer
This article is provided strictly for general educational and informational purposes. It is intended to explain how the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), the Rules for Courts-Martial, the Military Rules of Evidence, and related military administrative processes work as a matter of public legal education. It does not constitute legal advice, a legal opinion, or a recommendation about any particular case, and it is not a substitute for advice from a qualified military defense attorney who can evaluate the specific facts and command, service, and jurisdictional circumstances involved.
Reading this article, or contacting any website on which it appears, does not create an attorney-client relationship between the reader and any law firm, attorney, or author. Every court-martial, nonjudicial punishment action, administrative separation, and security-clearance matter turns on its own facts, the charged articles, the convening authority, the service branch, and the evidence, and outcomes vary widely from one case to another.
Military law also changes over time. The Military Justice Act of 2016 (effective January 1, 2019) and subsequent National Defense Authorization Acts renumbered and rewrote many punitive articles, revised the Article 32 preliminary hearing, and altered sentencing, clemency, and appellate procedures. Statutes, regulations, executive orders, the Manual for Courts-Martial, and decisions of the service Courts of Criminal Appeals and the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces may have been amended, superseded, or reinterpreted after this article was written, and article numbers or procedures cited here may have changed.
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