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Federal tribunal for appeal of lower military courts
Courts and military practice have long held that many retirees who remain “entitled to pay” can be subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and, in rare cases, recalled or otherwise pros...
U.S. law generally separates civilian and military justice: the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) governs service members and some categories related to military service, while ordinary civilian...
There is contemporary reporting about the Pentagon reviewing whether retired Navy captain and Senator Mark Kelly could be recalled to active duty for possible court-martial after a video urging troops...
The canonical rejection of the “just following orders” defense traces to early modern precedents and was crystallized at Nuremberg after World War II, a lineage courts‑martial in the United States now...
Public, searchable military court-martial records related to child‑pornography prosecutions do exist but are fragmented across service portals, appellate libraries, and press reporting; the Army maint...
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 ...
Military retirees remain within the reach of the Uniform Code of Military Justice through the persons covered provisions in Article 2 (codified at 10 U.S.C. § 802) and related statutes, and courts — i...
Courts and commentators disagree but current law and recent appellate rulings treat many regular-component retirees and certain fleet-reserve retirees as still subject to the UCMJ, while most reserve-...
Service members can appeal court-martial outcomes through a layered military process: summary court-martial convictions may be appealed to the next higher commander within five days, while special and...
Federal courts and the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces (CAAF) have consistently allowed military retirees to be prosecuted under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), while federal civili...
Courts and commentators disagree about when retired service members — including retired reservists — can be recalled and subjected to court-martial; recent reporting shows the Pentagon has threatened ...
Federal courts and legal commentaries show substantial support for Congress’s power to subject many military retirees to court-martial jurisdiction, while also recording sharp disputes about the const...
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 ...
U.S. military law treats unlawful orders as a narrow category — “patently illegal” orders (e.g., orders to commit crimes or atrocities) that service members must refuse, a legal standard for judges to...
Available sources provided do not discuss the specific origins or leading U.S. cases that established a “manifestly illegal” test for service members’ actions or discharges; none of the search results...
The Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) is federal law that serves as the criminal code and justice system for the U.S. armed forces, first enacted in 1950 and effective in 1951 . It applies to ac...