Military Lawyers

Service members facing allegations under Article 120 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the provision at 10 U.S.C. 920 covering rape, sexual assault, and related sexual contact offenses, often ask whether the charges can be dropped before the case reaches a court-martial. The answer is that it is possible, but the process and the decision-makers are specific to the military justice system, and the path differs in important ways from how a civilian prosecutor might dismiss a case. This article explains how charges can be resolved before trial, who controls that decision, and what realistically influences it.

The difference between preferral, referral, and dismissal

In the military, charges are first preferred, meaning they are formally drawn up and sworn. They are then referred to a court-martial by an authority with the power to send the case to trial. Between these steps there is room for a case to be resolved without going forward. Charges can be withdrawn or dismissed, and a case can be disposed of in a way other than trial. Understanding this sequence matters, because the opportunity to have charges dropped exists primarily before referral, and the levers available depend on which stage the case has reached.

Who decides for Article 120 cases now

A key recent change shapes the answer. For covered offenses, which include Article 120 violations, the decision about whether to prosecute no longer belongs to the accused’s commander. The Office of Special Trial Counsel, created by the Fiscal Year 2022 National Defense Authorization Act and operational across the services in late 2023, holds that authority through independent prosecutors who handle these cases as their specialty. This means that whether Article 120 charges move toward trial or are disposed of otherwise is largely in the hands of these specialized prosecutors rather than the local command. Anyone hoping to have charges dropped must understand that this office is the relevant decision-maker.

Grounds that can lead to charges being dropped

Several circumstances can lead the special trial counsel to decline to proceed. Insufficient evidence is the most common: if the proof does not support the elements of an Article 120 offense beyond a reasonable doubt, a responsible prosecutor may decline to refer the case. Because Article 120 defines consent as a freely given agreement by a competent person, and provides that a lack of verbal or physical resistance does not by itself establish anything, evidence bearing …

The United States and Spain each maintain a distinct system of military law, and the two illustrate how a common-law power and a civil-law European democracy structure the discipline of their armed forces in very different ways. The American system is built on a single statute, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, enforced through commander-convened courts-martial. The Spanish system rests on a modern Military Penal Code paired with a specialized military jurisdiction (jurisdicción militar) whose courts and prosecutors sit within the constitutional judicial order. Comparing them reveals two different settlements of the same problem: how to combine military discipline with the guarantees of ordinary justice.

The American framework: a single code and courts-martial

In the United States, military law is consolidated in the Uniform Code of Military Justice, or UCMJ, enacted by Congress and codified in Title 10 of the United States Code. The UCMJ governs members of all the armed forces and contains both military-specific offenses, such as desertion and disobedience of a lawful order, and ordinary crimes, such as theft and assault, that can be tried by military authorities.

The UCMJ is implemented through the Manual for Courts-Martial, a presidential document supplying the Rules for Courts-Martial and the Military Rules of Evidence. Article 16 establishes three tiers of court-martial, summary, special, and general, escalating in the punishments they may impose. A general court-martial is composed of a military judge and a panel of members, with the accused entitled to elect a judge-alone trial. Reforms in the 2016 Military Justice Act, reflected in the 2019 edition of the Manual, fixed panel sizes by statute and modernized voting and sentencing.

The defining American characteristics are that the system is administered by the military itself, that jurisdiction follows military status and reaches a wide range of offenses, and that appeals proceed through the service Courts of Criminal Appeals to the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, a civilian court, with possible Supreme Court review.

The Spanish framework: a constitutional military jurisdiction

Spain’s modern military justice system is a product of its post-Franco constitutional democracy and a series of reforms designed to bring military law into line with the 1978 Constitution. The substantive law is now set out in the Military Penal Code enacted as Organic Law 14/2015, which entered into force in 2015 and replaced the earlier 1985 code. A central feature of the 2015 reform is that the Military …

Service members and recruits frequently ask whether the military tests for anabolic steroids the way it tests for marijuana, cocaine, and other common drugs. The short answer is that the military can test for steroids, but it does not do so as part of the routine, randomized urinalysis that most troops experience. Understanding why requires looking at three things: the legal authority that lets the military test at all, the practical and procedural limits on steroid testing in particular, and the rules that govern how a test must be conducted before its results can be used against a service member. This article walks through each.

The Legal Status of Steroids in the Military

Anabolic steroids and related performance-enhancing substances such as testosterone are controlled substances. Under federal law, anabolic steroids are generally classified as Schedule III substances under the Controlled Substances Act. That classification means they may be possessed and used lawfully only under a valid prescription. Without one, their use, possession, distribution, or manufacture is unlawful.

In the military, the unauthorized use of a controlled substance is addressed by Article 112a of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, codified at 10 U.S.C. 912a. Article 112a covers the wrongful use, possession, manufacture, and distribution of controlled substances, and anabolic steroids fall within its reach when used without proper authorization. A service member who uses steroids without a prescription can therefore face the same kind of criminal exposure under Article 112a as someone who uses other Schedule controlled substances, with the precise maximum punishment depending on the substance and the conduct as set out in the Manual for Courts-Martial.

The Authority to Test

The military’s authority to require drug testing rests on its broad power to maintain readiness, health, and good order in the force. Department of Defense Instruction 1010.01 sets out the framework for military personnel drug abuse testing, and each service implements that framework through its own regulations. Within this structure, commanders may direct urinalysis testing under several theories, including random inspection testing of a unit, command-directed testing based on individual suspicion, testing incident to certain medical or accident situations, and consent testing.

The legal significance of which authority is used is large. Random and unit-sweep testing is generally treated as a lawful inspection, and the results are typically admissible. Testing based on individual suspicion must usually rest on probable cause and proper authorization, much like a search. Whether …

There is no fixed clock on an Article 120 investigation. No provision of the Uniform Code of Military Justice sets a deadline by which a military criminal investigative organization must finish looking into a sexual assault allegation. As a practical matter, investigations into rape, sexual assault, aggravated sexual contact, or abusive sexual contact commonly run for several months, and complex cases can stretch well past a year. For an accused, the uncertainty of that timeline is often as difficult as the allegation itself.

A typical range, not a guarantee

Most Article 120 investigations conducted by the Army Criminal Investigation Division, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, or the Coast Guard Investigative Service take somewhere in the range of several months to complete. Cases that turn primarily on witness statements and a straightforward set of facts tend to resolve faster. Cases that involve digital forensics, multiple witnesses, or events spread across more than one location frequently take much longer, sometimes extending past a year and a half when laboratory and forensic backlogs come into play.

It is important to treat any range as a general expectation rather than a rule. Every case is different, and an investigation can close quickly or remain open far longer than average depending on the specific facts.

What drives the length of an investigation

Several recurring factors explain why these investigations vary so widely in duration.

Digital forensics is one of the largest. When investigators seize phones, computers, or other devices, the data often goes to a forensic laboratory that handles cases from many units. Backlogs at those laboratories can add weeks or months before results come back.

The number and availability of witnesses also matters. Service members transfer, deploy, and separate. Coordinating interviews across time zones and duty stations slows the process. Medical and forensic examination records take time to gather and analyze.

The complexity of the underlying events plays a role as well. An allegation involving a single encounter is simpler to investigate than one spanning multiple incidents, locations, or alleged victims.

Finally, the path the case takes through the prosecution structure affects perceived timing. Since the Office of Special Trial Counsel assumed authority over covered offenses including Article 120, the investigative findings are routed to independent special trial counsel who evaluate the evidence and decide on charges. That review is part of the overall life of a …

Article 99 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, titled “Misbehavior before the enemy,” is one of the most serious offenses in all of military law. It is codified at 10 U.S.C. section 899. The article exists to ensure that, at the moment of greatest danger and need, service members do their duty rather than abandon it, and it punishes a range of combat related failures that put missions, units, and lives at risk. Because of its gravity, Article 99 is one of the few provisions of the UCMJ that authorizes the death penalty. This guide explains who the article covers, the specific forms of misconduct it prohibits, the elements the government must prove, the available defenses, the maximum punishment, and how these cases arise in practice.

Who and What the Article Covers

Article 99 applies to any member of the armed forces whose misconduct occurs before or in the presence of the enemy. That phrase, “before or in the presence of the enemy,” is central and is not strictly a matter of physical distance. It describes a tactical relationship to the enemy, a situation in which the accused is engaged with, or in proximity to, an opposing force such that the conduct affects the military effort against that enemy. A service member can be in the presence of the enemy while separated by considerable distance if the tactical circumstances connect them to the engagement, and conversely may not be in the presence of the enemy even when geographically close if no such tactical relationship exists. This element distinguishes Article 99 from ordinary disciplinary offenses and explains why the same act can carry vastly different consequences depending on the combat context.

The Nine Categories of Prohibited Conduct

Article 99 sets out nine distinct forms of misbehavior. The statute punishes any member of the armed forces who, before or in the presence of the enemy:

First, runs away. This covers fleeing or deserting one’s position or duty in the face of the enemy.

Second, shamefully abandons, surrenders, or delivers up any command, unit, place, or military property which it is the member’s duty to defend. This addresses the wrongful giving up of what the member was obligated to protect.

Third, through disobedience, neglect, or intentional misconduct endangers the safety of any such command, unit, place, or military property. This reaches conduct that imperils what must be defended, whether through willful acts …

A court-martial conviction is not final the moment a panel announces its findings. If the military judge gave the panel incomplete or erroneous instructions on the law, an appellate court can set the conviction aside. This article explains why instructions matter so much, the kinds of instructional gaps that lead to reversal, how military appellate courts decide whether an error was harmful, and what an accused should understand about challenging a conviction on this basis. It addresses the legal principle rather than any single named case.

What Panel Instructions Are and Why They Matter

In a trial by members, the panel functions much like a civilian jury. The members decide the facts, but they must apply the correct legal standards to those facts. The military judge supplies those standards through instructions delivered before the panel deliberates. Instructions typically cover the elements of each charged offense, the burden of proof and the presumption of innocence, the meaning of reasonable doubt, and any defenses raised by the evidence.

Because the panel is not made up of lawyers, the instructions are often the only place the members learn what the law actually requires. If the judge leaves out a required element, misstates the burden of proof, or fails to instruct on a defense that the evidence raised, the members may convict based on an incorrect understanding of the law. That is why a missing or incomplete instruction can undermine the entire verdict.

The Judge’s Duty to Instruct

The military judge has an affirmative duty to instruct the panel correctly and completely. This includes a duty to instruct on the elements of the offenses and on the applicable burdens. It also includes a duty, which the judge must discharge even without a defense request, to instruct on an affirmative defense whenever that defense is reasonably raised by the evidence.

The standard for when a defense is raised is generous to the accused. An affirmative defense is in issue when some evidence, regardless of its source or credibility, has been admitted upon which the members might rely if they choose to. If that threshold is met, the judge must give the instruction. The judge cannot decline simply because the judge doubts the strength of the evidence, because weighing that evidence is the panel’s job, not the judge’s.

Common Instructional Failures That Lead to Reversal

Several recurring problems can render instructions incomplete enough to threaten a …

When a sexual assault is reported within the Navy or Marine Corps, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service is the agency that investigates it. NCIS is the primary criminal investigative organization for the Department of the Navy, and Article 120 sexual assault allegations are among the offenses it handles most often. Understanding what NCIS does, and what it does not do, helps service members grasp how a Navy sexual assault case actually develops.

NCIS as the investigating agency, not the deciding authority

NCIS gathers facts. It does not decide guilt, and it does not by itself decide whether a service member will be charged. When an unrestricted report of sexual assault reaches a commander, law enforcement, a Sexual Assault Response Coordinator, or another official, NCIS is notified and a criminal investigation begins. NCIS agents then collect and document evidence, but the decision about whether the evidence supports charges rests elsewhere. The separation of these functions is deliberate. Investigators develop the record, and a separate authority evaluates it.

Independence from the local command

A defining feature of NCIS is that its agents operate separately from the chain of command of the people involved. NCIS is a civilian-led organization staffed largely by professional civilian special agents rather than by officers in the accused’s unit. Because of that structure, the investigation is not run by the commander of the accused or the complainant. The findings NCIS produces inform later decisions, but the agency conducts its work independently of the units involved.

This independence cuts in more than one direction. It means an accused’s commander cannot steer or shut down the investigation, and it also means the investigation is being conducted by trained agents whose job is to build a thorough record rather than to protect any individual.

What NCIS actually does during an Article 120 investigation

In a typical Article 120 matter, NCIS agents take a series of investigative steps. They interview the reporting person and any witnesses. They collect physical evidence, which may include the results of a sexual assault forensic examination conducted at a medical facility. They seek to recover digital evidence such as text messages, social media content, and location or ride records. They may request consent to search devices or seek legal authorization to do so. And they often seek to interview the subject of the investigation.

That subject interview is a pivotal moment. A service member who is suspected …

Sex offender registration is one of the most lasting consequences of an Article 120 conviction, and service members often assume it happens automatically the moment a court-martial returns a guilty finding. The reality is more layered. Registration is not imposed by the court-martial itself, and whether a given conviction triggers a registration obligation depends on Department of Defense policy and on the law of the jurisdiction where the convicted person lives, works, or goes to school. For the most serious Article 120 offenses, registration is effectively required, but the mechanism is administrative rather than part of the sentence.

Registration is not part of the court-martial sentence

A court-martial panel or military judge sentences a convicted member to punishments such as confinement, forfeitures, reduction in rank, and a punitive discharge. Sex offender registration is not one of those adjudged punishments. Instead, registration flows from a separate legal framework that operates after the conviction. The court-martial result is what triggers the analysis, but the registration duty itself comes from federal and state law, not from the sentence the judge announces.

How the Department of Defense identifies qualifying offenses

Department of Defense policy directs the military to notify convicted members of registration requirements and to report qualifying convictions to civilian authorities. Department of Defense Instruction 1325.07, which governs the administration of military correctional facilities, contains a listing of UCMJ offenses that are treated as registration offenses. Convictions for the core Article 120 sexual act offenses, rape and sexual assault, fall within that listing. Before release from confinement, or at sentencing if the member is not confined, the member is informed of the duty to register and is generally required to register within a short window, often three days, in each jurisdiction where the person resides, is employed, or attends school.

Why the obligation still depends on the jurisdiction

Even when DoD policy flags a conviction as a registration offense and reports it, the actual registration requirement is enforced by states and territories under their own statutes and under the federal Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act. Each jurisdiction decides how a military conviction maps onto its own categories of registerable offenses. Where there is a clear corollary between the UCMJ offense and a state sex crime, registration ordinarily follows. Where the match is less direct, the convicted person may have room to argue that the military offense does not correspond to a registerable …

Understanding how search results are organized for a competitive legal term is a discipline in its own right. This article lays out a structured method for analyzing the search engine results page, or SERP, for queries related to military attorneys and court-martial defense. Rather than reporting specific rankings, which shift constantly and vary by location and user, it describes a repeatable framework for reviewing the first 100 results and drawing reliable conclusions from them. The aim is methodology, not a snapshot that would be stale within weeks.

Why a Structured Review Is Necessary

Search results for legal services are dynamic. They change with algorithm updates, personalization, location, device, and time. Any claim that a particular firm sits at a particular position on a given day is fragile and quickly outdated. What holds up over time is a disciplined way of looking at the results, categorizing what appears, and identifying the patterns that explain why certain pages surface. A structured review turns a chaotic page of links into an interpretable map of how the search engine understands the topic.

The first 100 results, roughly the first ten pages, are a useful sample because they capture not just the dominant players but the long tail of pages competing for visibility. Reviewing that full set, rather than only the top handful, reveals the shape of the competitive landscape.

Step One: Define the Query Set Precisely

Before reviewing anything, define exactly which queries are in scope. Military attorney searches are not monolithic. They include broad commercial terms, more specific service terms, and informational questions. Examples of distinct intent categories include general representation terms, court-martial specific terms, and offense specific terms.

Group the queries by the intent they express. A search expressing a clear hire intent behaves differently from a search expressing a research intent. Keeping these separate prevents the common mistake of treating one results page as if it represented all military law searches.

Step Two: Categorize Every Result by Type

Walk through the first 100 results and assign each one to a category. A practical taxonomy includes law firm websites, attorney directories and listing sites, government and military resources, educational or informational publishers, news and media pages, and miscellaneous or off topic results.

Counting how many results fall into each category produces an immediate picture of the SERP’s composition. If directories and government pages dominate the early results, that tells you the search …

Few articles of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) are charged as often as Article 92. Codified at 10 U.S.C. section 892, it is the catchall that enforces the system of orders and regulations through which the armed forces operate. It reaches three different kinds of misconduct: violating a general order or regulation, disobeying another lawful order, and being derelict in the performance of a duty. Because the article touches nearly every aspect of military life, from sweeping service-wide regulations to a single instruction given by a supervisor, it is worth understanding how its three branches differ.

The three offenses

Article 92 punishes any person subject to the Code who does any of three things. First, violates or fails to obey a lawful general order or regulation. Second, having knowledge of any other lawful order issued by a member of the armed forces that it is the person’s duty to obey, fails to obey that order. Third, is derelict in the performance of duties. Each branch has its own elements, and each carries its own maximum punishment, with the general-order branch treated most seriously and dereliction by simple neglect treated least seriously.

The distinction between the first two branches turns on the kind of order. A general order or regulation is one issued by an authority with broad command responsibility, such as a service secretary or a senior commander, that applies generally to the force and is punitive in nature. Its defining feature is that everyone subject to it is presumed to know it, so the government need not prove that a particular accused had actual knowledge. An “other lawful order” is more specific, often directed to an individual or a small group, and for that branch the government must prove that the accused actually knew of the order.

Elements of the general-order offense

To convict under the first branch, the government must prove that a certain lawful general order or regulation was in effect, that the accused had a duty to obey it, and that the accused violated or failed to obey it. Notably absent is any element of knowledge. Because general orders apply across the force and service members are charged with knowing them, the prosecution does not have to prove the accused was personally aware of the regulation. This makes the first branch a powerful charging tool for violations of well-publicized prohibitions, such as general orders …