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United States Military Law
The Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) requires service members to obey lawful orders but also recognizes a duty to disobey “patently illegal” commands — those that clearly direct the commission ...
A U.S. service member can be court-martialed for disobeying a superior’s order if that order is lawful — Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice criminalizes failure to obey lawful orders a...
Available reporting and legal commentary establish that U.S. military law treats following an unlawful order as potentially criminal and that service members have a duty to refuse “patently” or clearl...
The Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) requires service members to obey lawful orders but recognizes a duty (and sometimes an obligation) to refuse orders that are “patently illegal,” including c...
U.S. service members are trained and legally required to refuse orders that are unlawful, but that duty is constrained by a high legal threshold (“manifestly unlawful”), strong institutional incentive...
U.S. military law draws a clear line: service members are required to obey lawful orders and have a duty to refuse orders that are unlawful, especially those that are "manifestly unlawful" (e.g., orde...
U.S. law and military rules say a service member must refuse a “patently illegal” order that directs the commission of a crime, including orders that violate the Constitution, statutes, or military re...
U.S. military law requires obedience to lawful orders but also imposes a duty to refuse clearly unlawful orders; that duty is rooted in the Uniform Code of Military Justice (Article 92) and the Manual...
Historical precedent shows that U.S. service members have both been prosecuted and, in other cases, acquitted or excused when they followed superior orders later judged unlawful; the key legal touchst...
The military court-martial system follows a distinct pretrial, trial, post-trial and appellate structure set by the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the Manual for Courts‑Martial; there are three ...
Service members are legally required to obey lawful orders and to refuse patently unlawful ones; Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and the Manual for Courts‑Martial frame that ...
Courts‑martial have long rejected blanket immunity for "I was following orders," instead treating obedience to superior orders as a constrained defense: lawful orders must be followed, but manifestly ...
Historical prosecutions for following orders reach back at least to the Nuremberg trials, which established that “just following orders” does not excuse war crimes . U.S. cases such as Lt. William Cal...
Civilian courts and military courts apply different procedures and contexts when judging whether an order was unlawful and whether a service member had a duty to refuse it: military law treats obedien...
Courts distinguish legislative acts from nonlegislative military conduct by looking to constitutional text, statutory law (the UCMJ and related statutes), the historical role of Congress and the Presi...
International and U.S. military law establish that servicemembers must refuse “manifestly unlawful” orders — particularly those requiring crimes such as targeting civilians, torture, or other war crim...
Appellate courts in the military and civilian systems over the last decade have treated refusal to follow orders as fact-specific: courts repeatedly emphasize that orders are presumed lawful but that ...
Historical U.S. prosecutions for following or issuing unlawful orders include high-profile cases such as Lt. William L. Calley Jr. (My Lai), which set a precedent that “just following orders” is not a...
Modern U.S. military doctrine and legal practice recognize a duty to refuse orders that are "manifestly" or "patently" unlawful — but that duty is narrow, high-threshold, and tied to criminality rathe...
Service members are legally required to obey lawful orders and to refuse manifestly unlawful ones; the Manual for Courts‑Martial and Article 92 of the UCMJ treat orders as presumptively lawful but mak...