Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice criminalizes contemptuous words against certain high officials. Service members who follow politics sometimes wonder how far the article reaches. If an officer criticizes a local mayor, a county official, or a state governor, has the officer committed an offense? The answer requires careful attention to the precise list of officials the statute protects and to the distinction the law draws between contemptuous words and ordinary criticism. A governor can fall within Article 88 under defined conditions, while a local mayor does not.
Who Article 88 protects
Article 88 lists its covered officials by office. It punishes a commissioned officer who uses contemptuous words against the President, the Vice President, Congress, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of a military department, the Secretary of Homeland Security, or the Governor or legislature of any State, Commonwealth, or possession in which the officer is on duty or present. The list is exclusive. An official who does not appear on it is not protected by Article 88.
This exclusivity is the key to the local-mayor question. A mayor is a municipal official, not a state governor, and the office of mayor appears nowhere in the statute. Contemptuous words about a mayor, a city council member, a county commissioner, or any other local official therefore do not violate Article 88. The same is true for officials who resemble but are not the listed offices. Authorities interpreting the article have explained that a lieutenant governor is not the “Governor” for these purposes, and that individual members of Congress or of a state legislature are not protected because the article reaches “Congress” and the “legislature” as institutions, not their individual members. The statute means exactly what it says, office by office.
How a governor can come within the article
A state governor is expressly listed, but with an important geographic limitation. The article reaches contemptuous words against the governor only of a State, Commonwealth, or possession in which the officer is on duty or present. In other words, the governor of the state where the officer is stationed or physically located is covered, but a governor of some distant, unrelated state to which the officer has no current connection is not protected in the same way. This condition narrows the governor provision considerably and reflects the article’s concern with the officer’s relationship to the civil authority of the place where the officer serves or is present.
So criticism of a governor can fall within Article 88, but only when two things are true together. The words must be contemptuous rather than merely critical, and the governor must be the governor of the state in which the officer is on duty or present.
Only commissioned officers can violate Article 88
Article 88 applies to a narrow class of accused. Its prohibition runs to commissioned officers. Enlisted members, warrant officers, and cadets or midshipmen who have not been commissioned are not subject to Article 88. That does not mean enlisted members may say anything they wish about public officials, because other provisions can apply to disrespectful or disorderly conduct, but the specific Article 88 offense is limited to commissioned officers. For the local-mayor and governor question, this means only a commissioned officer can be charged under this article in the first place.
Contemptuous words versus ordinary criticism
Even when the target is a listed official, such as the governor of the officer’s duty state, not every negative comment is criminal. The article punishes contemptuous words, meaning words of insult, scorn, or disdain directed at the official. The Manual for Courts-Martial guidance accompanying the article draws a meaningful line between contempt and criticism. Adverse criticism of one of the named officials or legislatures in the course of a political discussion, even if expressed emphatically, may not be charged as a violation if it is not personally contemptuous. Likewise, expressions of opinion made in a purely private conversation should ordinarily not be charged.
The guidance also identifies circumstances that aggravate the offense when contemptuous words are used. Giving broad circulation to a written publication containing contemptuous words, or uttering such words in the presence of military subordinates, makes the conduct more serious. These factors highlight the article’s underlying purpose, which is to preserve civilian control of the military and good order rather than to suppress political opinion.
Applying the framework
Consider an officer who, during a political discussion, sharply disagrees with the governor of the state where the officer is stationed and calls the governor’s policies misguided and harmful. That is criticism, likely protected as adverse comment in a political discussion, and not properly charged. Now consider an officer who publicly broadcasts scornful, insulting words personally degrading that same governor, especially to an audience of subordinates or through wide publication. That conduct moves toward the contemptuous-words core of the article and could fall within its scope.
By contrast, consider an officer who excoriates the mayor of the local town or a county official. However harsh the words, they fall outside Article 88 entirely, because those offices are not on the statutory list. The officer might face concerns under other provisions if the conduct were disorderly or prejudicial to good order, but Article 88 itself does not reach criticism of local officials.
Conclusion
Criticism of a local mayor does not fall within Article 88, because the article protects only the specific offices it names and a mayor is not among them. Criticism of a state governor can fall within Article 88, but only when the words are genuinely contemptuous rather than ordinary political criticism, only when the governor is the governor of the State, Commonwealth, or possession in which the officer is on duty or present, and only when the speaker is a commissioned officer. The article is narrow by design, aimed at contemptuous words against a fixed list of high officials, and the line between protected criticism and punishable contempt is central to its proper application.
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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