Military Lawyers

Article 82 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) punishes the act of asking, advising, or urging another person to commit a military offense. Long known as the solicitation article, it is codified at 10 U.S.C. section 882. Following the 2019 reorganization of the UCMJ, the article retained its number but its statutory heading now reads “Soliciting commission of offenses,” and the provision was restructured into two subsections. This guide explains what the article covers, the elements of the offense, the special treatment of certain grave offenses, the defenses that arise, and the punishment structure.

The statutory text

The article is now divided into two subsections.

Subsection (a) provides: “Any person subject to this chapter who solicits or advises another to commit an offense under this chapter (other than an offense specified in subsection (b)) shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.”

Subsection (b) provides: “Any person subject to this chapter who solicits or advises another to violate section 885 of this title (article 85), section 894 of this title (article 94), or section 899 of this title (article 99)” is then subject to two rules: if the offense solicited or advised is attempted or committed, the solicitor “shall be punished with the punishment provided for the commission of the offense”; and if the offense is not attempted or committed, the solicitor “shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.”

The articles singled out in subsection (b) are desertion (Article 85, section 885), mutiny or sedition (Article 94, section 894), and misbehavior before the enemy (Article 99, section 899). These are among the most serious offenses against military order, which is why soliciting them receives special treatment.

What solicitation is

The core of solicitation is the act of seriously asking, advising, counseling, commanding, or otherwise urging another person to commit an offense, accompanied by the intent that the offense actually be committed. The solicitation may be by any means: spoken words, written words, gestures, or any other form of communication that conveys the request. It does not matter whether the person solicited agrees, acts, or even responds. The crime is complete when the solicitation is made with the required intent.

This is what makes solicitation an inchoate offense, meaning a crime that punishes conduct pointed toward a future offense rather than the completed offense itself. It is closely related to, but distinct from, attempt under Article 80 and …

When a sexual assault case reaches a court-martial, one recurring fight is over whether evidence of an alleged victim’s prior sexual behavior can ever come before the panel. The default answer is no. Military Rule of Evidence 412, the military rape shield rule, exists precisely to keep that kind of evidence out, subject to a few narrow exceptions and a strict procedural gate. This article explains the limits the rule imposes, the standards governing its exceptions, and the procedural controls that an accused must satisfy before any such evidence can be admitted.

The Purpose of the Rape Shield Rule

Military Rule of Evidence 412 is the military counterpart to the civilian rape shield laws. Its core purpose is to protect alleged victims of sexual offenses from the embarrassing and degrading cross-examination and evidence presentations that historically characterized sexual offense prosecutions. The Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces has described this protective purpose, including in United States v. Ellerbrock, 70 M.J. 314 (C.A.A.F. 2011), and United States v. Gaddis, 70 M.J. 248 (C.A.A.F. 2011).

By keeping a complainant’s sexual history out of the courtroom as a general matter, the rule serves two goals. It encourages victims to come forward by sparing them needless humiliation, and it keeps the factfinder focused on the charged conduct rather than on irrelevant character inferences.

The General Prohibition

As a starting point, MRE 412 bars two categories of evidence in cases involving an alleged sexual offense. It bars evidence offered to prove that an alleged victim engaged in other sexual behavior, and it bars evidence offered to prove an alleged victim’s sexual predisposition. This prohibition is the rule. Everything else is an exception that must be affirmatively justified.

The breadth of the prohibition is intentional. It reaches not only direct evidence of past sexual acts but also evidence aimed at painting the complainant as the kind of person who would have consented. Both lines of attack are presumptively off limits.

The Three Exceptions

The rule recognizes a limited set of exceptions under which otherwise barred evidence may be admitted. They are narrow and must be read against the strong presumption of exclusion.

The first exception allows evidence of specific instances of an alleged victim’s sexual behavior offered to prove that someone other than the accused was the source of semen, injury, or other physical evidence. This is the alternative source exception, and it typically arises …

Military law content spans a wide range of topics, from the punitive articles of the Uniform Code of Military Justice to procedure, appeals, and administrative actions. Understanding how this content competes for visibility in search requires a method that works across many related but distinct queries. This article presents a structured framework for analyzing the search results page across UCMJ article topics and military law more broadly, and for drawing portfolio level conclusions about content visibility. It emphasizes durable method over fleeting ranking data.

The Challenge of a Multi Topic Landscape

Unlike a single keyword study, an analysis of military law content visibility has to cover a constellation of topics. The UCMJ contains many punitive articles, each addressing a different offense, and military law also includes procedural rules, evidentiary rules, the appellate system, and various administrative processes. Each topic has its own audience, its own competitive set, and its own typical result mix.

The challenge, then, is to analyze visibility at two levels at once. At the topic level, the question is how content for a specific article or subject competes. At the portfolio level, the question is which topics are most contested, which are underserved, and where genuinely useful content has the best opportunity to earn visibility. A good framework supports both.

Step One: Build a Topic Inventory

Start by enumerating the topics in scope. Group them into logical clusters such as punitive articles, court-martial procedure, rules of evidence, appeals and post-trial process, and administrative or separation actions. Within each cluster, list the specific subjects that draw meaningful search interest.

This inventory becomes the spine of the analysis. It ensures the review is comprehensive rather than anecdotal, and it lets findings be organized by cluster so that patterns within and across clusters become visible.

Step Two: Sample Representative Queries per Topic

For each topic, identify representative queries that capture the main ways people search for it. Distinguish informational queries, where users want to understand a concept, from transactional queries, where users are looking for representation. Recording both intents per topic prevents conclusions that hold for one intent from being wrongly generalized to the other.

Step Three: Categorize Results Consistently

For each sampled query, review the results and categorize each one using a consistent taxonomy, such as practitioner content, government and military sources, legal reference publishers, educational explainers, news, and community discussion. Applying the same categories across every query is …

Accusations of adultery occupy an unusual position in the life of a service member going through a divorce. They can matter in two separate legal systems at once: the state civil court that actually grants the divorce and divides the marriage, and the military justice system that can discipline the service member for the underlying conduct. Understanding how an adultery accusation can affect divorce proceedings means understanding both tracks and how they interact, because the same allegation can carry very different weight in each. This article explains where adultery can influence a divorce, where its civilian effect is often overstated, and how the distinct military consequences can reshape the practical stakes.

Divorce is a matter of state law, not military law

The first and most important point is that no military court grants a divorce. Marriage and divorce are governed by state law, and a service member must obtain a divorce through a state court, ordinarily in a state where the service member or spouse properly establishes jurisdiction. That means the legal effect of adultery on the divorce itself, on property division, on spousal support, and on custody, is determined by the law of the state handling the case, not by the UCMJ.

This is a frequent source of confusion. The fact that adultery can be a military offense does not give a divorce court any special powers, and the fact that a divorce court may consider adultery does not mean a court-martial will follow. The two systems run on parallel tracks with different rules and different purposes.

Fault states versus no-fault states

How much an adultery accusation matters in the divorce itself depends heavily on whether the governing state recognizes fault grounds for divorce or whether it operates on a no-fault basis.

Some states allow a spouse to allege fault grounds, and adultery is a classic fault ground. In those states, proving adultery can affect the divorce in tangible ways. Many states permit courts to weigh marital misconduct, including adultery, when dividing property or deciding spousal support. Other states have moved to a purely or predominantly no-fault model, where the divorce is granted on grounds such as irretrievable breakdown of the marriage and where marital fault plays little or no role in the financial outcome.

Because the rules vary so much from state to state, the same accusation of adultery can be decisive in one jurisdiction and nearly irrelevant …

Yes. A service member accused of rape, sexual assault, aggravated sexual contact, or abusive sexual contact under Article 120 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice has a statutory right to be represented by a civilian lawyer of their own choosing. This right is not a courtesy extended by the command. It is written into the UCMJ, and it applies to every level of court-martial, including the general courts-martial where Article 120 sexual act offenses must be tried.

The statutory right to choose your counsel

Article 38 of the UCMJ guarantees an accused the right to be represented by civilian counsel if the civilian counsel is provided at no expense to the United States. The same provision guarantees a free military defense counsel from the Judge Advocate General’s Corps and, in many cases, the chance to request a specific military lawyer by name if that officer is reasonably available. A civilian attorney does not replace these military rights automatically. Instead, the accused may keep an appointed military defense counsel on the case alongside retained civilian counsel, or release the military counsel and proceed with the civilian lawyer leading the defense. The choice belongs to the accused.

Because the right runs to the accused rather than to the lawyer, a civilian attorney does not need to be a former service member, a current reservist, or a member of any particular state bar tied to the installation. The lawyer must be a member of the bar of a federal court or of the highest court of a state, and the military judge will typically confirm that admission on the record before trial.

What a civilian lawyer actually does in a court-martial

A civilian defense attorney admitted to represent an Article 120 accused performs the same functions as detailed military counsel. The lawyer can investigate the allegation, interview witnesses, retain forensic and mental health experts, file pretrial motions, cross-examine the government’s witnesses, present a defense case, and argue sentencing if the panel returns a finding of guilty. Civilian counsel can appear at the preliminary hearing held under Article 32, at motions sessions, and at the general court-martial itself, regardless of where in the world the trial convenes.

There are practical limits. A civilian lawyer is bound by the same Military Rules of Evidence and Rules for Courts-Martial as any other participant. Civilian counsel must follow the military judge’s scheduling orders and the procedural …

A security clearance denial can stall or end a career, both in uniform and in the civilian and contractor world that depends on cleared positions. The short answer to the question is yes: an attorney experienced in personnel security law can assist at nearly every stage of addressing a denial, from responding to the initial notice through a hearing and, in limited circumstances, an appeal. This article explains how the clearance process works, where an attorney adds value, and what a service member or applicant should understand about the deadlines and the standards involved.

How the Clearance Process Leads to a Denial

The Statement of Reasons

A denial usually does not arrive without warning. When an adjudicating authority, such as the Department of Defense Consolidated Adjudications Facility, identifies concerns that could justify denying or revoking eligibility, it issues a Statement of Reasons. This document lists the specific concerns that form the basis for the proposed action and ties each one to the applicable adjudicative guideline. The Statement of Reasons is the roadmap to the case, and reading it carefully is the first step in any response.

The Adjudicative Guidelines

Clearance eligibility decisions are governed by Security Executive Agent Directive 4, known as SEAD 4, which sets out thirteen adjudicative guidelines. Each guideline identifies a category of potentially disqualifying conduct, such as financial considerations, personal conduct, foreign influence, or alcohol or drug involvement, and each guideline also lists conditions that can mitigate the concern. A denial is essentially a determination that the disqualifying conditions outweigh the mitigating ones.

The Whole-Person Standard

Adjudication is not a mechanical checklist. The decision-maker applies a whole-person assessment, weighing the seriousness and recency of the conduct, the circumstances surrounding it, evidence of rehabilitation, and the likelihood of recurrence. This standard is where careful advocacy can change an outcome, because it allows context, growth, and mitigation to be presented.

Where a Military Attorney Can Assist

Analyzing the Statement of Reasons

An attorney begins by dissecting the Statement of Reasons, matching each alleged concern to its guideline, and identifying which disqualifying conditions the government is relying on. This analysis reveals what must be rebutted and which mitigating conditions are realistically available, so the response targets the actual basis for the denial rather than guessing at it.

Preparing the Written Response

The applicant has a defined, short window to respond in writing to the Statement of Reasons, and that …

When a senior officer faces court-martial, the case often draws intense media attention. That coverage can create a real risk that potential panel members have already formed opinions before the first witness testifies. In such situations, one available remedy is to move the trial, a change of venue, so the accused can be tried before members untainted by local publicity. This article explains how the change of venue remedy works in the military justice system, when pretrial publicity justifies it, and what procedures govern the request. It addresses the legal framework rather than reporting on any specific named officer or proceeding.

The Right at Stake

Every accused at a court-martial is entitled to a fair trial by an impartial panel. Pretrial publicity threatens that right when it saturates the community from which members are drawn and predisposes those members toward a particular result. The concern is not merely that people have heard about a case. The concern is that exposure to one sided or inflammatory coverage may make it impossible to seat members who can decide the case solely on the evidence presented in court.

High profile cases involving general officers are especially vulnerable. Senior leaders are well known within their commands and across a service, and allegations against them are frequently reported in detail. That visibility increases the chance that the pool of potential members has been exposed to extensive coverage.

The Change of Venue Remedy

Within the Rules for Courts-Martial, the mechanism for moving a trial is a motion for a change of venue, sometimes described as a motion to change the place of trial. It is one of the motions for appropriate relief and is brought before the military judge. The basic premise is that if a fair trial cannot be assured in the place where the court-martial would ordinarily sit, the proceeding can be relocated to a place where an impartial panel can be assembled.

Change of venue is one tool among several for addressing prejudicial publicity. Others include a thorough and probing voir dire of prospective members, individualized questioning about media exposure, challenges for cause against members who cannot set aside what they have heard, and instructions directing members to decide the case only on the evidence. A change of venue is generally reserved for situations where these lesser measures are not adequate to protect the accused’s right to an impartial panel.

When Pretrial Publicity

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Consent sits at the center of most Article 120 sexual assault prosecutions under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Yet the way the government proves a lack of consent is often misunderstood. The statute does not require the prosecution to put on a single piece of evidence labeled “lack of consent.” Instead, the government proves the relevant theory of the offense, and the statutory definition of consent shapes what the panel may and may not consider when it decides whether that theory has been established beyond a reasonable doubt.

What the statute says about consent

Article 120, codified at 10 U.S.C. 920, defines consent as a freely given agreement to the conduct at issue by a competent person. The statute then sets out several rules that bind the fact finder. An expression of lack of consent through words or conduct means there is no consent. A lack of verbal or physical resistance does not by itself constitute consent. And submission resulting from the use of force, the threat of force, or being placed in fear does not constitute consent. These rules matter because they prevent the panel from treating silence, passivity, or fearful compliance as agreement.

Lack of consent as one route, not the only route

Article 120 describes several distinct ways to commit a sexual act offense. Some theories, such as committing a sexual act by unlawful force or by causing bodily harm, do not require the prosecution to prove lack of consent as a separate element at all, because the manner of the act supplies the criminality. Other theories, including committing a sexual act upon a person who is asleep, unconscious, or otherwise unaware, or who is incapable of consenting due to impairment or a mental or physical condition, turn on the alleged victim’s inability to give a freely given agreement. The charge the government selects determines whether lack of consent must be proven directly and how.

The kinds of evidence the government uses

When lack of consent or incapacity is at issue, prosecutors build the case from ordinary forms of proof rather than any special category of evidence.

Testimony from the complaining witness is usually central. The witness may describe what was said and done, whether the witness expressed unwillingness, and the witness’s condition at the time, including intoxication or sleep.

Circumstantial evidence often surrounds that account. Text messages, social media exchanges, ride records, and surveillance footage …

The search results for terms related to UCMJ defense and military law follow a recognizable structure. Anyone who studies the landscape for queries like “UCMJ lawyer,” “court-martial attorney,” or “military defense lawyer” will notice the same kinds of pages appearing, organized in predictable ways, with predictable strengths and predictable blind spots. This analysis describes how those search engine results pages, or SERPs, are typically structured, what kinds of content tend to earn visibility, and where the recurring thematic gaps lie. It is written as an observational content-strategy piece and avoids inventing specific rankings, traffic figures, or competitor metrics, none of which can be responsibly stated without direct measurement.

What the query landscape looks like

Searches in this space fall into a few broad intent categories, and the SERP composition shifts with the category.

Transactional and high-intent commercial queries, such as those naming a lawyer, an attorney, or a specific location combined with court-martial, tend to surface law firm landing pages, directory listings, and local results. The searcher is looking to hire or at least to identify counsel.

Informational queries, such as those asking what a particular UCMJ article means, what happens at a court-martial, or what punishment an offense carries, surface a different mix: explanatory articles, glossary-style article pages, and authoritative reference material. The searcher wants to understand a situation, often urgently, and may or may not be ready to hire.

Navigational and reference queries, such as those seeking the text of a specific article or the Manual for Courts-Martial, tend to surface official government sources and well-established legal reference sites.

The practical implication is that the SERP for a UCMJ-related term is rarely homogeneous. It blends commercial firm pages, informational explainers, directories, and official sources, and the proportions depend on what the searcher is actually trying to do.

The dominant content archetypes

Across these results, a handful of content archetypes recur.

The first is the practice-area page. Defense firms maintain pages organized around offenses and proceedings, often a page per UCMJ article or per category of misconduct, plus pages for processes like Article 32 preliminary hearings, administrative separation boards, and appeals. These pages serve double duty as informational explainers and as commercial landing pages.

The second is the article-by-article reference library. Many firms build out a complete set of pages covering the punitive articles, mirroring the structure of Part IV of the Manual for Courts-Martial. This taxonomy is attractive …

A finding of not guilty at a court-martial is a complete acquittal. For a service member who has lived under the weight of an Article 120 allegation, that verdict ends the criminal case on those charges and triggers strong protections against being tried again. But an acquittal does not erase every consequence the allegation may have set in motion. Understanding what the verdict resolves, and what it does not, is essential to moving forward.

The acquittal is final on the criminal charges

Once a court-martial returns a not guilty finding, the criminal case on those charges is over. Article 44 of the UCMJ codifies the protection against former jeopardy, which is the military expression of the constitutional guarantee against double jeopardy. The government cannot retry the acquitted member for the same offense, and it generally cannot appeal an acquittal, because reversing it would require a new trial that the protection forbids. This finality is one of the most important features of the military justice system: a true acquittal closes the door on re-prosecution for that conduct.

Pretrial restrictions should be lifted

While charges are pending, an accused often lives under a no-contact order, a flag that freezes favorable personnel actions, and limits on assignments, travel, or duties. After an acquittal, the legal basis for many of these restrictions falls away. A no-contact order tied to the charged case should be addressed, and any administrative flag connected to the court-martial should be reviewed for removal so that promotions, schools, reenlistment, and other actions can resume. These changes are not always instantaneous, and the member may need to follow up through counsel and the chain of command to ensure the restrictions are actually lifted.

Administrative action can still be possible

This is the part that surprises many service members. Double jeopardy protects against a second criminal trial, but it does not bar non-criminal administrative measures. The military can, in appropriate cases, pursue administrative separation based on the same underlying conduct, because administrative separation is not a criminal trial and uses a lower standard of proof. An acquittal at court-martial does not automatically prevent the command from initiating such proceedings. Whether the command does so depends on the facts and on policy, but a member should be aware that the possibility exists and should be prepared to defend an administrative board if one is convened.

Other administrative consequences can also linger. Adverse information …