Missing movement is the offense of failing to move with a ship, aircraft, or unit that a service member is required to accompany. It is punished under Article 87 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. A common misconception is that the offense requires proof that the accused was trying to dodge a dangerous deployment, that the prosecution must show an intent to avoid hazardous duty. That is not how the offense is structured. This article explains why intent to avoid hazardous duty is not a required element, what mental states the statute actually contemplates, and where the confusion comes from.
The elements of missing movement
To convict under Article 87, the government must prove three things beyond a reasonable doubt. First, that the accused was required, in the course of duty, to move with a ship, aircraft, or unit. Second, that the accused knew of the prospective movement. Third, that the accused missed that movement, and did so through design or through neglect.
Read those elements carefully. The mental-state requirement attaches to how the movement was missed, captured in the words “design or neglect,” and to the accused’s knowledge of the movement. Nothing in the elements requires the government to prove that the accused acted in order to avoid a hazardous assignment. The reason for missing the movement, whether fear of danger, family problems, intoxication, or simple carelessness, is not an element of the offense.
“Design” and “neglect”: the two routes to liability
Article 87 can be committed in either of two mental states, and they are very different from one another.
Design means the accused missed the movement on purpose. It is a specific intent to miss the movement, a deliberate choice not to be there. A service member who decides he will not deploy and stays away on purpose has missed movement by design.
Neglect means the accused failed to take the reasonable measures a prudent person would have taken to be present, or acted without giving adequate thought to the likely consequences. A service member who goes so far from the departure point that timely return becomes unlikely, or who fails to keep track of the reporting time, can miss movement by neglect even though he never formed any intention to be absent. Neglect is, in essence, a negligence standard, and it does not require any wrongful purpose at all.
Because neglect suffices, the offense plainly does not demand proof of any particular motive, let alone the specific motive of avoiding hazardous duty. A person who misses a movement purely through carelessness, with no thought of the assignment’s dangers, can still be convicted.
Why people think hazardous duty must be involved
The confusion has an understandable source. Article 87 most often comes to public attention when a service member deliberately fails to deploy to a combat zone or to a perilous mission, and the prosecution may emphasize that the missed movement was a deployment. In addition, missing movement is sometimes discussed alongside offenses where danger or duty is more directly at issue, and the dramatic real-world cases tend to involve avoidance of dangerous service. But the salience of those cases does not change the legal elements. The hazard of the assignment may be relevant background, and it can affect how serious the offense looks at sentencing, but it is not something the government must prove to establish guilt.
It is also worth distinguishing missing movement from other offenses that do contain an avoidance element. Some offenses are defined in part by an intent to shirk or avoid particular duties. Missing movement is not framed that way. Its gravamen is the failure to move with the required ship, aircraft, or unit, accomplished through design or neglect, regardless of the underlying reason.
What the prosecution must actually prove about intent
To secure a conviction, the government must prove that the accused knew of the movement and that the accused missed it either on purpose (design) or through a culpable failure of care (neglect). If the charge alleges that the movement was missed by design, the prosecution must prove that deliberate intent to miss the movement. If the charge alleges neglect, the prosecution must prove the failure to exercise reasonable care. In neither case must the prosecution prove that the accused was motivated by a desire to escape danger.
This has practical consequences for the defense. A defense that the accused had no wish to avoid a dangerous deployment does not defeat the charge, because motive is not an element. The meaningful defenses go to the actual elements: that the accused did not know of the movement, that the accused was not required to move with that ship, aircraft, or unit, that the movement was not in fact missed, or that any failure was neither deliberate nor the product of a lack of reasonable care.
How hazard can still matter
Although intent to avoid hazardous duty is not an element of guilt, the nature of the missed movement is not irrelevant to the case as a whole. The seriousness of the duty that was missed, and the circumstances surrounding the absence, can bear on sentencing once guilt is established. A deliberate refusal to deploy with a unit headed into harm’s way will generally be viewed as far more serious than an inadvertent miss of a routine movement. So while the prosecution need not prove a hazard-avoidance motive to convict, such facts can influence the consequences a convicted service member faces.
The bottom line
Intent to avoid hazardous duty is not a required element of missing movement under Article 87. The offense requires that the accused knew of a movement he was required to make and that he missed it through design or through neglect. Because neglect, a negligence standard with no wrongful purpose, is enough, the government never has to prove that the accused was trying to dodge a dangerous assignment. The danger of the duty may color the case at sentencing, but it forms no part of what the prosecution must establish to prove guilt.
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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