Subject-Matter Jurisdiction: Which Offenses a Court-Martial Can Try
On this page
- General courts-martial: the widest reach
- Offenses only a general court-martial may try
- Special courts-martial: a ceiling on punishment, not on offenses
- Summary courts-martial: narrower reach, and not a criminal forum
- The doctrine behind the phrase
- Where this fits among the three jurisdictional questions
- What this page does not decide
- Where to go from here
- Sources
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, and the differences between them decide what a forum may try and what it may impose.
This page takes Articles 18, 19 and 20 in order, quotes the limits each one carries, and identifies the offenses the statute reserves to a single forum. It closes on a provision that is easy to miss: one of the three forums is not a criminal proceeding at all, and the Code says so in two sentences.
It does not decide whether particular conduct is an offense, and it does not tell anyone what forum a case will end up in.
General courts-martial: the widest reach
Article 18 sets the outer limit of what any court-martial may do.
“(a) Subject to section 817 of this title (article 17), general courts-martial have jurisdiction to try persons subject to this chapter for any offense made punishable by this chapter and may, under such limitations as the President may prescribe, adjudge any punishment not forbidden by this chapter, including the penalty of death when specifically authorized by this chapter.”
Source: 10 U.S.C. 818 (Article 18), subsection (a).
Read the two halves separately. The trial reach is “any offense made punishable by this chapter”, with no carve-outs. The punishment reach is anything not forbidden by the chapter, subject to limits the President prescribes, and it includes death where the chapter specifically authorises it.
The same article then adds a second head of jurisdiction that has nothing to do with the Code’s own offenses: general courts-martial “also have jurisdiction to try any person who by the law of war is subject to trial by a military tribunal and may adjudge any punishment permitted by the law of war.”
One internal limit applies to the judge-alone form. Under Article 18(b), a general court-martial composed of a military judge alone “shall not have jurisdiction to try any person for any offense for which the death penalty may be adjudged unless the case has been previously referred to trial as a noncapital case.”
Offenses only a general court-martial may try
Article 18(c) removes a group of offenses from the lower forums entirely:
“(c) Consistent with sections 819 and 820 of this title (articles 19 and 20), only general courts-martial have jurisdiction over the following offenses: (1) A violation of subsection (a) or (b) of section 920 of this title (article 120). (2) A violation of subsection (a) or (b) of section 920b of this title (article 120b). (3) An attempt to commit an offense specified in paragraph (1) or (2) that is punishable under section 880 of this title (article 80).”
Source: 10 U.S.C. 818 (Article 18), subsection (c).
The structure is worth noting: the reservation is by statutory reference, not by description. Whether an allegation falls inside it is answered by identifying the subsection charged, not by characterising the conduct.
Special courts-martial: a ceiling on punishment, not on offenses
Article 19 gives the middle forum a broad trial reach and then restricts what it can impose.
“(a) In General.—Subject to section 817 of this title (article 17), special courts-martial have jurisdiction to try persons subject to this chapter for any noncapital offense made punishable by this chapter and, under such regulations as the President may prescribe, for capital offenses. Special courts-martial may, under such limitations as the President may prescribe, adjudge any punishment not forbidden by this chapter except death, dishonorable discharge, dismissal, confinement for more than one year, hard labor without confinement for more than three months, forfeiture of pay exceeding two-thirds pay per month, or forfeiture of pay for more than one year.”
Source: 10 U.S.C. 819 (Article 19), subsection (a).
That list of exceptions is the definition of the forum in practical terms: no death, no dishonorable discharge, no dismissal, and confinement capped at one year.
A second ceiling applies to the judge-alone version. Under Article 19(b), where charges are referred to a special court-martial consisting of a military judge alone under Article 16(c)(2)(A), “[n]either a bad-conduct discharge, nor confinement for more than six months, nor forfeiture of pay for more than six months may be adjudged.”
Article 19(c) also permits the military judge in that forum, “with the consent of the parties”, to designate a military magistrate to preside.
Summary courts-martial: narrower reach, and not a criminal forum
Article 20 restricts both who may be tried and what may be imposed, and then makes a statement about the character of the proceeding.
“(a) In General.—Subject to section 817 of this title (article 17), summary courts-martial have jurisdiction to try persons subject to this chapter, except officers, cadets, aviation cadets, and midshipmen, for any noncapital offense made punishable by this chapter. No person with respect to whom summary courts-martial have jurisdiction may be brought to trial before a summary court-martial if he objects thereto. If objection to trial by summary court-martial is made by an accused, trial may be ordered by special or general court-martial as may be appropriate.”
Source: 10 U.S.C. 820 (Article 20), subsection (a).
Three limits are in that passage. Officers, cadets, aviation cadets and midshipmen are excluded from the forum. Only noncapital offenses may be tried. And the accused may object, which stops the summary court-martial and leaves the case to be ordered before a special or general court-martial if appropriate.
The punishment ceiling is the lowest of the three: no death, dismissal, dishonorable or bad-conduct discharge, no confinement beyond one month, no hard labor without confinement beyond 45 days, no restriction beyond two months, and no forfeiture beyond two-thirds of one month’s pay.
Then the provision that changes how the forum should be understood:
“(b) Non-criminal Forum.—A summary court-martial is a non-criminal forum. A finding of guilty at a summary court-martial does not constitute a criminal conviction.”
Source: 10 U.S.C. 820 (Article 20), subsection (b).
The doctrine behind the phrase
Everything above is forum allocation: which of the three courts-martial may try which offenses. The term subject-matter jurisdiction also carries a constitutional history, and it is worth separating from the statutory scheme.
The older rule required a connection between the offense and military service. The Supreme Court abandoned it. The Army’s own criminal law deskbook states the holding:
“The Supreme Court overrules O’Callahan, abandoning the ‘service-connection’ test, and holds that jurisdiction of a court-martial depends solely on the accused’s status as a member of the Armed Forces.”
Source: The Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School, Criminal Law Deskbook, Jurisdiction, on Solorio v. United States, 483 U.S. 435 (1987). The words above are the deskbook’s statement of the holding, not a quotation from the opinion, which was not opened.
The same source states the current test in one line: subject-matter jurisdiction is established by showing military status at the time the accused committed an offense under the Code. Location is not part of the test, which is why Article 5 provides that the chapter “applies in all places.”
Two things follow for this page. The status question is answered by Article 2, and the page on personal jurisdiction works through the fourteen categories that supply it. And the forum limits set out above are a separate requirement that survives the status test: establishing that a court-martial may try someone does not establish that this court-martial may try this offense.
Where this fits among the three jurisdictional questions
Subject-matter jurisdiction is the offense question, and it fails independently of the other two. A person squarely inside Article 2 can still be outside the reach of a particular forum, because the forum’s own article does not cover the offense or cannot impose the punishment sought.
The person question is personal jurisdiction, and the place question is answered by Article 5 in a single sentence, covered in territorial jurisdiction.
Which forum a case reaches is not decided by these articles. They state what each forum may do; the decision to send a case to one of them is a referral, and who sends a case to court-martial sets out who now holds that power.
What this page does not decide
Whether particular conduct is an offense under the Code. The punitive articles define offenses; this page describes forum reach.
What punishment a case will attract. The articles quoted here state ceilings, and a ceiling is not a prediction.
Whether an accused should object to a summary court-martial. Article 20(a) gives the right to object and states the consequence; whether to exercise it is a decision for the accused with counsel.
Where to go from here
The three forums and their composition are set out in Article 16 and summarised in the rules for courts-martial. What happens once a case is referred is in inside a court-martial trial.
Sources
- 10 U.S.C. 818 · Article 18, Jurisdiction of general courts-martial · the widest reach, the law-of-war head, and the offenses reserved to this forum
- 10 U.S.C. 819 · Article 19, Jurisdiction of special courts-martial · the punishment exceptions and the judge-alone ceilings
- 10 U.S.C. 820 · Article 20, Jurisdiction of summary courts-martial · the excluded categories, the right to object, and the non-criminal forum provision
- 10 U.S.C. chapter 47 · the Code in full · Article 17, referred to at the head of all three articles
- Criminal Law Deskbook, Jurisdiction · the holding in Solorio v. United States, 483 U.S. 435 (1987), and the status-based test quoted above
What this page did not open. Solorio itself was not opened; it is quoted as the Army’s criminal law deskbook states it, not from the opinion. The Manual for Courts-Martial was not opened, and each of these articles refers to limitations the President may prescribe, which live there. No punitive article was analysed, and no court decision was opened.
Checked on 19 September 2026, and checked for currency as well as for accuracy. Every statutory provision cited on this page was traced to the current United States Code: where a provision has not been amended since the 2023 edition, that edition’s text is the current text and its amendment record was read to confirm it; where a provision was amended by Pub. L. 118–159 (23 December 2024) or Pub. L. 119–60 (18 December 2025), the current text is quoted above and the amending Act is named beside it. The two Acts’ own texts were read to establish the complete list of provisions in this chapter that they changed. This was done through the Cornell mirror of the Code and through the Acts as published by the Government Publishing Office; the House preliminary Code could not be reached from here, so no third source confirms it. No independent expert review has taken place yet, and this page says so rather than implying one.