Article 97 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice punishes any person subject to the Code who, except as provided by law, apprehends, arrests, or confines another person. The renumbering that took effect on January 1, 2019, under the Military Justice Act of 2016 left this offense in place as Article 97 (10 U.S.C. 897). The question many service members and their families ask is whether confinement imposed through nonjudicial punishment under Article 15 can ever cross the line into unlawful detention under Article 97 when it exceeds the limits the Code allows. The honest answer is that the two provisions occupy different worlds, and reaching Article 97 requires far more than a paperwork mistake about days served.
What Article 15 actually authorizes
Nonjudicial punishment under Article 15 (10 U.S.C. 815) is a disciplinary tool, not a criminal conviction. The punishments a commander may impose are capped by statute and by service regulations, and several of them involve a form of restraint. Correctional custody, for example, is the physical restraint of a person during duty and nonduty hours. For most enlisted members, a commander may impose correctional custody for not more than seven consecutive days, while a flag or general officer in command, or an officer exercising general court-martial jurisdiction, may impose up to thirty consecutive days. Restriction to specified limits is capped at fourteen consecutive days for the lower level of authority and sixty days for the higher level. Article 15 also forbids stacking punishments such as arrest in quarters, correctional custody, extra duties, and restriction so that they run consecutively beyond the maximum allowed for each, requiring an apportionment instead.
These numbers matter because they define what is lawful. A punishment that stays within them is authorized by law, which is exactly the phrase Article 97 carves out when it says “except as provided by law.”
Why exceeding the limit is usually corrected, not criminalized
When an Article 15 punishment runs past the authorized number of days, or combines restraints in a way the statute does not allow, the ordinary consequence is administrative. The service member may appeal the nonjudicial punishment to the next superior authority, who can set aside, mitigate, or correct the illegal portion. A judge advocate reviewing the action can flag the defect, and excess restraint can be credited or undone. Courts and reviewing authorities treat an overlong correctional custody or restriction as an unlawful punishment to be remedied, not automatically as a separate crime committed by the commander.
This is the central point. Article 97 is not a stopwatch that converts every overage into a felony. The offense targets the unlawful use of authority to confine, and a commander who imposes a punishment in good faith that later proves to exceed a limit has not necessarily made unlawful use of that authority in the criminal sense.
What Article 97 actually requires
To convict under Article 97, the prosecution must prove that a person was apprehended, arrested, or confined by the accused, and that the accused made unlawful use of authority to do so. The accused must also have lacked a reasonable belief that the restraint was lawful. That last element is decisive in the Article 15 context. A commander who follows the nonjudicial punishment process, imposes correctional custody, and miscalculates the permitted days has a strong claim to a reasonable belief that the action was lawful. Without proof that the official knew the confinement was unauthorized and imposed it anyway, the criminal element is not met.
The maximum punishment for Article 97 reflects its seriousness as a criminal charge: a dishonorable discharge, forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and confinement for up to three years. Charges of this magnitude are reserved for genuine abuses of detention authority, not for arithmetic errors in a disciplinary record.
When confinement under nonjudicial punishment could approach Article 97
There is a narrow set of circumstances where overreaching restraint connected to Article 15 could draw Article 97 scrutiny. If an official deliberately ordered confinement that the official knew was wholly unauthorized, continued to hold a member after a punishment was set aside or fully served, or used the appearance of nonjudicial punishment as a pretext to detain someone without any lawful basis, the conduct begins to resemble the unlawful use of confinement authority the statute describes. Even then, prosecutors would have to prove the absence of a reasonable belief in lawfulness, which is a demanding standard. The mere fact that a punishment exceeded a statutory cap does not supply that proof.
Practical takeaways
A service member who believes an Article 15 punishment exceeded the authorized confinement or restriction limits should act through the channels built for that problem. Appealing the nonjudicial punishment, raising the defect with the servicing judge advocate, and seeking correction or credit for excess restraint are the direct remedies. These steps address the illegality of the punishment itself. Pursuing an Article 97 theory against the imposing authority is a separate and much higher bar that depends on proof of a knowing, unlawful use of confinement power rather than a miscalculated punishment.
In short, Article 97 does not automatically apply to confinement under Article 15 simply because the confinement exceeds authorized limits. The two provisions answer different questions. Article 15 sets the lawful ceilings and provides its own correction mechanism when those ceilings are breached. Article 97 reaches only deliberate, unlawful uses of detention authority where the official had no reasonable belief the restraint was lawful. Because the facts and the proof required differ so sharply, anyone facing or imposing restraint under nonjudicial punishment should consult a military defense attorney to evaluate which framework actually governs their situation.
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.
For these reasons, no reader should act or decline to act based on this content without first consulting a licensed attorney experienced in military justice about their own situation. The author and publisher make no warranty, express or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness, timeliness, or current applicability of the information provided, and disclaim any liability for any action taken or not taken in reliance on it. If you are facing investigation, charges, or an adverse administrative action, time limits may apply, and you should seek qualified counsel promptly.