The military depends on a chain of command that functions even under stress, and that chain depends on subordinates treating their superiors with a minimum level of respect. Article 89 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), codified at 10 U.S.C. section 889, enforces that expectation by making it an offense to behave with disrespect toward a superior commissioned officer. The article is narrow in one sense, since it protects only commissioned officers who stand in a superior relationship to the accused, but it is broad in another, because disrespect can be shown through words, conduct, or the deliberate withholding of customary courtesies.
What Article 89 covers
Article 89 punishes a person subject to the Code who behaves with disrespect toward that person’s superior commissioned officer. The conduct can take many forms. It may be spoken, such as abusive, contemptuous, or denunciatory language. It may be physical conduct, such as an insolent gesture, a sneer, or a marked display of disdain. It may also be an omission, such as deliberately failing to render the customary salute or courtesy that the situation calls for. The article reaches behavior whether it refers to the officer in an official capacity or treats the officer as a private individual, because the dignity the article protects attaches to the office and the person who holds it.
It is worth separating Article 89 from its neighbors. Article 89 addresses disrespect. The willful disobedience of a lawful command from a superior commissioned officer falls under Article 90. Physical assault on a superior officer is charged under the assault provisions of the Code rather than as mere disrespect. Article 89 occupies the space below those more serious offenses, covering contemptuous or insolent treatment that does not rise to disobedience or violence.
The elements
To convict, the government must prove four elements beyond a reasonable doubt. First, that the accused did or omitted certain acts, or used certain language, to or concerning a certain commissioned officer. Second, that this conduct or language was directed toward that officer. Third, that the officer was the superior commissioned officer of the accused. Fourth, that the accused then knew the officer was the accused’s superior commissioned officer, and that under the circumstances the behavior or language was disrespectful.
Each element repays attention. The conduct must be directed at the officer, although it need not be made to the officer’s face. Disrespectful words spoken about a superior in a way intended to reach or demean that superior can satisfy the article. The accused must have known the person’s status as a superior commissioned officer, because knowledge ties the conduct to the breach of the command relationship. And the conduct must be disrespectful when assessed in context, since the same words or gestures can be innocuous in one setting and contemptuous in another.
What “superior commissioned officer” means
The phrase is a term of art. When the accused and the officer are in the same armed force, the officer is the accused’s superior commissioned officer when superior in rank or in command. Importantly, an officer who is superior in rank but inferior in command is not the accused’s superior commissioned officer for purposes of this article in that situation. When the accused and the officer are in different armed forces, the relationship is generally established when the officer is superior in rank and the two are serving together in some capacity, such as in the same unit or operation. Establishing this relationship is essential, because the article protects the command hierarchy, not officers in the abstract.
Truth, provocation, and other recurring issues
A point that often surprises people is that truth is not a defense to disrespect. An accused who makes a contemptuous remark about a superior cannot escape liability by proving the remark was accurate. The offense lies in the disrespectful manner and the breach of the command relationship, not in whether the underlying statement was factually correct.
Context still matters a great deal. The factfinder considers the full circumstances, including tone, setting, and audience, to decide whether conduct was genuinely disrespectful or merely blunt, frustrated, or clumsy. Heated disagreement expressed through proper channels is not the same as contempt. The defense may also raise the absence of knowledge of the officer’s superior status, or argue that the words or conduct, fairly understood, were not directed at the officer at all.
Defenses
Common defenses track the elements. The defense may contest the command relationship, showing that the officer was not in fact the accused’s superior commissioned officer in the relevant sense. It may contest knowledge, showing the accused did not know the officer held that status. It may contest the disrespectful character of the conduct, placing the words or acts in a context that makes them something other than contempt. And ordinary factual defenses, such as misidentification or a disputed account of what was actually said or done, remain available, with the government carrying the burden on every element.
Maximum punishment
The maximum punishment historically authorized by the Manual for Courts-Martial for disrespect toward a superior commissioned officer is a bad-conduct discharge, forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and confinement for one year. As with all UCMJ offenses, the President prescribes maximum punishments and sentencing parameters, and these are revised from time to time, so the controlling ceiling for a particular charge should be verified against the Manual for Courts-Martial and the executive order in effect when the offense occurred. Many disrespect allegations never reach a court-martial at all and are instead handled through nonjudicial punishment or administrative measures, where the available sanctions are considerably more limited.
In practice
Article 89 charges frequently arise out of confrontations witnessed by others, so testimony about exactly what was said or done, and in what tone, tends to drive the case. Commands often address minor instances of disrespect informally or through nonjudicial punishment, reserving court-martial for repeated or egregious conduct. When a case is litigated, the contest usually centers on whether the relationship and knowledge elements are met and whether the conduct, viewed in its full context, was disrespectful or merely the product of a tense but lawful exchange. Understood properly, Article 89 is not a tool for punishing every sharp word, but a safeguard for the command relationship that allows the military to function.
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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