In almost all circumstances, no. The private deliberations of a Board of Inquiry (BOI) are confidential by design, and the informal notes that members may jot down while deliberating are not the official record of the proceeding. They are not meant to be preserved, disclosed, or used as evidence in later actions against the service member. The official output of a BOI is its formal findings and recommendations, not the rough, partial, or unfinished notes that individual members generate during a closed deliberative session. Trying to use such notes in a future proceeding runs into both procedural and reliability problems.
How a BOI actually deliberates
A BOI hears evidence and argument in open session, then deliberates and votes in closed session. Findings and recommendations are made by majority vote during that closed session. The deliberation itself is meant to be candid and protected, much like jury deliberations, so that members can debate freely without fear that their interim thoughts will later be parsed and used against anyone. If a legal question arises during closed deliberations, it is brought back into open session to be resolved with the recorder, the respondent, and the respondent’s counsel present, which keeps the formal record clean and on the open record.
The product of deliberation is documented on a Findings and Recommendations Worksheet that all voting members sign. A member who disagrees with the majority may submit a separate minority report stating the findings or recommendations with which the member does not concur and the reasons. That signed worksheet, and any minority report, is the authoritative record of what the board decided. The scratch notes a member used to organize personal thoughts are not part of that authoritative record.
Why incomplete notes carry no evidentiary weight
Incomplete deliberation notes fail on several grounds at once.
First, they are not the official findings. Whatever an individual member wrote mid-deliberation does not bind the board and does not represent the board’s collective decision. Only the signed worksheet does. A partial note might capture a tentative view a member later abandoned after discussion, so it does not reliably reflect even that member’s final position, let alone the board’s.
Second, they intrude on protected deliberations. The closed nature of the deliberative session exists to protect the integrity of the process. Allowing later litigants to mine members’ working notes would chill candid deliberation and invite exactly the kind of second-guessing the closed session is meant to prevent. This is the same policy that protects the secrecy of jury and panel deliberations generally.
Third, they are unreliable as evidence. An incomplete note is, by definition, a fragment. It lacks context, may be ambiguous, and cannot be authenticated as a considered statement of fact. Even in the relaxed evidentiary environment of administrative proceedings, where boards are expected to consider relevant and reliable information rather than apply strict trial rules, a fragmentary deliberation note is the opposite of reliable. It would be unfair and misleading to treat a member’s unfinished jotting as proof of anything in a later action.
The narrow situations where deliberations are examined
There is a limited exception worth noting, and it cuts the other way. Deliberations are sometimes examined not to prove the underlying misconduct but to test the validity of the board’s process. If a respondent alleges that the board was tainted by unlawful command influence, improper extraneous information, or a clear procedural defect, a reviewing authority may inquire into how the board functioned to decide whether the proceeding was fair. Even then, the inquiry targets the integrity of the process, not the use of stray notes as substantive evidence of guilt in some new case. So the rare circumstance in which deliberations are looked at is a defensive, process-protecting one, not a tool the government can use to build a fresh case against the member from leftover notes.
What can properly be used later
To be clear about what does carry forward, the board’s official findings and recommendations can be used in later personnel actions, and the formal record of the proceeding is what reviewing and approving authorities act upon. If the board substantiated a basis for separation, that finding has consequences. A future action might also rely on the same underlying evidence the board heard, because that evidence exists independently of the deliberation. The distinction is between the board’s official, signed output and the underlying admissible evidence on one hand, and the members’ informal, incomplete deliberative notes on the other. Only the former has a legitimate role going forward.
Practical guidance
A service member who learns that incomplete deliberation notes are being floated in a later proceeding has strong grounds to object. The objection should rest on the confidentiality of board deliberations, the fact that only the signed Findings and Recommendations Worksheet is authoritative, and the unreliability of fragmentary notes as evidence. If deliberations are being scrutinized at all, the member should clarify whether the purpose is a legitimate process-integrity inquiry, such as a command-influence challenge, or an improper attempt to repurpose protected deliberative material as substantive proof. Because these distinctions are technical and the stakes for a service member’s career are significant, anyone facing this situation should consult experienced military counsel to frame the objection and protect the record.
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.
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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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