How Military Defense Counsel Works in a Court-Martial
A service member who learns that charges may be coming usually has one immediate worry beneath all the others: whether real legal help is available, and…
Uniform Code of Military Justice · Reference
Court Martial Guide
Reference index
29 guidesThe Right to a Military Defense Lawyer: Detailed, Individual, and Civilian Counsel
The Uniform Code of Military Justice does not make a defense lawyer something an accused applies for. Article 27 requires counsel to be detailed, and Article…
Inside a Court-Martial Trial: From Opening Statements to Verdict
A court-martial reaches a verdict by secret written ballot, counted by the most junior member, and it does not require unanimity. Those three facts separate it…
The Service Rules That Implement the UCMJ: AR 27-10, JAGMAN, and DAFI 51-201
Military justice has three layers, not two. Congress writes the statute, the President writes the Manual for Courts-Martial, and each service writes its own regulation beneath…
DoD Directives in Military Justice: Titling, Indexing, and Law-of-War Duties
Department of Defense directives and instructions are not law and they are not the Manual for Courts-Martial. They are departmental issuances, and two of the things…
Who Is Who in a Court-Martial: The Roles That Decide a Case
A court-martial distributes authority across more offices than a civilian criminal trial does, and the Uniform Code of Military Justice keeps them apart on purpose. The…
Arraignment in the Military Justice System: Charges, Pleas, and Forum
Arraignment is short and it fixes things. The charges are read or waived, a plea is entered, and the choices that shape the rest of the…
The Military Prosecutor: What Trial Counsel Does, and Its Limits
The Uniform Code of Military Justice gives the military prosecutor's duty in one sentence, and then spends several other articles limiting what the office can reach.…
Territorial Jurisdiction: How Far a Court-Martial’s Authority Reaches
The Uniform Code of Military Justice answers the territorial question in five words. Article 5 is one sentence long, and it is the shortest article in…
Pretrial Motions in a Court-Martial: Suppression, Dismissal, and Discovery
Motions are argued to the military judge, decided by the military judge, and heard with the panel out of the room. The Uniform Code of Military…
After a Court-Martial Conviction: Post-Trial Review and the Appeals Path
The old picture of military justice ended with a commander reviewing a conviction and deciding whether to let it stand. Which cases that is still true…
The Manual for Courts-Martial: How the UCMJ Is Put Into Practice
The Uniform Code of Military Justice does not tell a court-martial how to run. Congress wrote the offenses, the forums and the rights; it handed the…
The Staff Judge Advocate: The Commander’s Lawyer in Military Justice
A staff judge advocate advises a commander. That sentence is accurate and it hides the part that matters, which is that the Uniform Code of Military…
How a Court-Martial Panel Is Chosen: Voir Dire and Member Selection
A court-martial panel is not drawn from a jury pool. There is no venire, no summons to the general population, and no random draw. A convening…
Article 31 Rights: Military Self-Incrimination Protections, and How They Differ from Miranda
Article 31 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice is four subsections long. Three of them are about compulsion, and only one is the warning that…
What Happens Before a Court-Martial: The Pretrial Stages Explained
Most of a military case happens before anyone enters a courtroom. The Uniform Code of Military Justice sets out the stages in sequence, and each one…
Personal Jurisdiction: Who Is Subject to the UCMJ
Personal jurisdiction in military justice starts with a list rather than a doctrine. Article 2 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice names fourteen categories of…
How Military Justice Was Reformed: The Acts of 1968, 1983, 2016, and 2019
The Uniform Code of Military Justice has been rewritten in place four times on the scale the title names, and the evidence for each rewrite is…
Subject-Matter Jurisdiction: Which Offenses a Court-Martial Can Try
Three kinds of court-martial exist, and they do not have the same reach. The Uniform Code of Military Justice gives each one its own jurisdictional article,…
The Rules for Courts-Martial: The Procedure Behind a Military Trial
The Rules for Courts-Martial are the procedural part of the Manual for Courts-Martial. They are cited as R.C.M. followed by a number, they are not statute,…
What a Court-Martial Conviction Costs: Punishments and Lasting Consequences
A court-martial sentence is not one thing. Several of its effects are not imposed by the court at all: they follow automatically from the sentence by…
NATO SOFA Jurisdiction: Who Prosecutes a U.S. Service Member Overseas
Two states can both have authority over the same act. A service member who commits an offense in a host nation may be within the reach…
The Uniform Code of Military Justice: The Law Every Service Member Lives Under
The Uniform Code of Military Justice is a federal statute. It sits in Title 10 of the United States Code, it was passed by Congress, and…
Convening Authority: Who Sends a Case to Court-Martial, and Who No Longer Can
For most of the Uniform Code's life, one person decided whether a case went to trial: the commander with authority to convene a court-martial. That is…
Preferral of Charges: How Military Charges Are Brought on the DD Form 458
Preferral is the moment allegations become charges. It is a short, formal act: someone subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice signs a document under…