Article 93 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, codified at 10 U.S.C. 893, makes it an offense for any person subject to the Code to be cruel toward, or to oppress or maltreat, any person subject to that person’s orders. Nothing in the statute requires that the abuse be physical. Verbal conduct can qualify, which raises a question that comes up often in real command climates: can a pattern of demeaning, insulting, or degrading words from a superior amount to criminal maltreatment? The answer is yes, it can, but only when the words cross from rough or harsh leadership into treatment that an objective observer would find abusive and without legitimate military purpose.
The elements the government must prove
A maltreatment charge under Article 93 has two elements. First, the victim must have been subject to the orders of the accused. Second, the accused must have been cruel toward, or have oppressed or maltreated, that victim. The first element narrows the offense to relationships of authority. A peer cannot commit Article 93 maltreatment against an equal who is not subject to the peer’s orders. The required relationship can arise from rank, position, duty assignment, or other authority that places the victim under the accused’s direction.
The second element is where verbal conduct is evaluated. The Manual for Courts-Martial explains that cruelty, oppression, and maltreatment refer to treatment that, viewed objectively under all the circumstances, is abusive or otherwise unwarranted, unjustified, and unnecessary for any lawful purpose, and that causes, or reasonably could have caused, physical or mental harm or suffering. Crucially, the maltreatment need not be physical.
The objective standard and why it controls
Article 93 is measured by an objective standard. The question is not merely whether a particular subordinate felt hurt, but whether the conduct, considered objectively in context, was abusive and served no lawful purpose. This standard does two jobs. It captures genuinely degrading verbal abuse even when a thick-skinned subordinate is not subjectively devastated, and it screens out ordinary supervisory friction that a reasonable person would not regard as abuse.
The objective test also explains why the government need not prove that the victim actually suffered harm. It is enough that the treatment reasonably could have caused physical or mental harm or suffering. For repeated verbal insults, this means a prosecutor can build a case on the nature, frequency, and context of the words and the authority relationship, without having to prove a diagnosable injury.
When repeated insults cross the line
Whether a pattern of insults constitutes maltreatment is fact-intensive. Several features tend to push verbal conduct across the line into Article 93 territory. Repetition and persistence matter, because a sustained campaign of degradation is more plausibly abusive than an isolated harsh remark. Content matters, because slurs, sexualized comments, humiliation in front of peers, and attacks on a person’s dignity are more likely to be abusive than blunt but task-focused criticism. The absence of a legitimate purpose matters most of all, because the standard expressly asks whether the treatment was unnecessary for any lawful purpose.
By contrast, firm, even sharp, correction tied to performance, training, standards, or discipline generally is not maltreatment, because it serves a recognized military purpose. Article 93 was not designed to criminalize demanding leadership or strong language used to enforce standards. The dividing line is purpose and proportion: words deployed to train, correct, or maintain discipline differ from words deployed to demean, humiliate, or break a subordinate down for no defensible reason.
Relationship to hazing, bullying, and related misconduct
Repeated verbal abuse often overlaps with hazing and bullying, which the Department of Defense addresses through harassment-prevention policy. Conduct that qualifies as hazing or bullying without a proper military purpose can be charged under Article 93 when it satisfies the maltreatment elements, and it may also implicate other punitive articles depending on the facts. A superior who berates and degrades a subordinate through a sustained pattern of insults may face an Article 93 charge, a violation of a service anti-hazing or equal-opportunity regulation under Article 92, or both, depending on how the command frames the misconduct.
Verbal conduct of a sexual nature deserves a separate note. Sexual harassment in the military was historically charged under Article 93 as maltreatment. It is now also addressed as a distinct offense, having been made a standalone offense under Article 134 by executive action in 2022 implementing a National Defense Authorization Act mandate. Repeated sexualized insults by a superior may therefore be analyzed under more than one theory, and counsel should identify exactly which article the government has charged.
Defending and evaluating a verbal-maltreatment charge
Because the standard is objective and purpose-driven, both prosecution and defense focus on context. The defense will emphasize legitimate purpose, performance problems that prompted the correction, the absence of degrading content, and the difference between demanding supervision and abuse. The prosecution will emphasize the pattern, the degrading or gratuitous nature of the words, the power imbalance, the setting, and the lack of any training or disciplinary justification. Witness testimony about how the words were delivered and received, and about the command climate, frequently determines the outcome.
Bottom line
Repeated verbal insults by a superior can constitute maltreatment under Article 93 when the victim was subject to the superior’s orders and the words, viewed objectively, were abusive, served no lawful purpose, and reasonably could have caused mental or physical harm. The statute does not require physical contact or proof of actual injury. What separates criminal maltreatment from lawful, if harsh, leadership is whether the conduct had a legitimate military purpose and whether an objective observer would regard it as abuse rather than discipline. The controlling authority is the text of Article 93 and its implementing provisions in the Manual for Courts-Martial.
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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