Article 82 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) punishes soliciting or advising another to commit an offense. A recurring question on today’s installations, where civilian contractors perform everything from logistics to base security to intelligence support, is what happens when a service member solicits one of those contractor employees to commit misconduct. The short answer is that Article 82 focuses on the person doing the soliciting, not on the person being solicited. A service member can be convicted under Article 82 for soliciting a contractor even though the contractor is an ordinary civilian who is not personally subject to the UCMJ.
The structure of Article 82 after 2019
The Military Justice Act of 2016, which took effect in 2019, rewrote Article 82 into two parts. Subsection (a) is the general solicitation provision: any person subject to the UCMJ who solicits or advises another to commit an offense under the code, other than the offenses named in subsection (b), may be punished as a court-martial directs. Subsection (b) addresses the gravest military crimes by cross-reference: soliciting or advising another to violate Article 85 (desertion), Article 94 (mutiny or sedition), or Article 99 (misbehavior before the enemy). For those, if the solicited offense is attempted or committed, the solicitor faces the punishment for the underlying offense; if not, punishment is as a court-martial directs.
The pre-2019 version of Article 82 reached only desertion, mutiny, misbehavior before the enemy, and sedition. The current statute is far broader, because subsection (a) now extends to soliciting any UCMJ offense.
Two elements, and the one that does the work
A general Article 82(a) solicitation requires that the accused solicited or advised a person to commit a UCMJ offense, and that the accused did so with the specific intent that the offense actually be committed. The offense is complete at the moment of the solicitation. It does not matter whether the person solicited agreed, acted, or even took the request seriously. The crime lies in the asking, coupled with the intent that the requested offense occur.
That structure is why the status of the contractor matters less than people assume. Article 82 is satisfied by what the accused does and intends. The phrase “another” in the statute is not limited to fellow service members.
Why the contractor’s status is usually beside the point
The jurisdictional hook for Article 82 attaches to the accused. The accused must be a person subject to the UCMJ under Article 2, which in practice means the active-duty service member, reservist on duty, or other person within Article 2 jurisdiction who issued the solicitation. If that person solicits a contractor employee on the installation to commit an offense, the elements can be met regardless of whether the contractor could ever be tried by court-martial.
There is a wrinkle worth being precise about. Subsection (a) speaks of soliciting another to commit “an offense under this chapter,” that is, a UCMJ offense. A purely civilian contractor performing routine work on a base is generally not subject to the UCMJ and therefore generally cannot personally “commit a UCMJ offense” in the way a service member can. Prosecutors and courts address this in practical terms: the conduct the service member is urging is assessed for what it amounts to, and the solicitation is charged accordingly. Where the urged conduct is itself a freestanding UCMJ offense that the solicitor could be party to, or where the solicitation can be framed under a different theory, the government has charging options. The cleaner the fit between the urged conduct and a recognized UCMJ offense, the stronger the Article 82 theory.
Where the contractor genuinely is subject to the UCMJ
In limited circumstances, contractor personnel are themselves subject to the UCMJ. Article 2 extends jurisdiction to persons serving with or accompanying an armed force in the field during a declared war or a contingency operation. A contractor employee deployed in a contingency operation can fall within that provision. When the solicited contractor is in that category, the analysis is straightforward: the solicitor is urging a person subject to the code to commit a UCMJ offense, and Article 82(a) applies on its own terms, with subsection (b) controlling if the urged conduct is desertion, mutiny, sedition, or misbehavior before the enemy.
Related charging theories
Because the installation setting often involves contractors who are not under the UCMJ, the government frequently has companion theories. Soliciting a contractor to falsify records, to facilitate a fraud against the United States, or to enable theft of government property can also implicate other punitive articles directed at the service member’s own conduct, such as conspiracy under Article 81 if an agreement forms, or the substantive offense itself on an aiding-and-abetting theory if the contractor carries the act out. Article 82 remains distinct from conspiracy: solicitation needs no agreement and is complete when the request is made with the requisite intent.
Bottom line
Article 82 reaches a service member who solicits contractor personnel on a U.S. military installation because liability turns on the solicitor’s conduct and intent, not on whether the contractor is amenable to court-martial. The offense is complete upon the solicitation. When the contractor is an ordinary civilian, prosecutors must take care to align the urged conduct with a cognizable UCMJ offense and may turn to companion theories; when the contractor is accompanying the force in a contingency operation and thus subject to the code, Article 82 applies directly, with its enhanced subsection (b) treatment reserved for solicitations to commit desertion, mutiny, sedition, or misbehavior before the enemy.
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.