Military Justice by the Numbers: Court-Martial, Sexual Assault and Appeals Data (FY2019 to FY2025)

Key numbers

All figures come from official Department of Defense, service and court reports unless marked as a secondary source. A fiscal year (FY) runs October 1 to September 30. “DoD-wide” means the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force and Space Force; the Coast Guard reports separately.

Fewer sexual-assault courts-martial, more administrative discharges

In FY2019, commanders preferred court-martial charges against 795 subjects for a sexual-assault offense. By FY2025 that number was 340, a 57% drop.^[1][6] Over the same years, administrative discharge as the action for a sexual-assault offense rose from 212 to 614.^[1][6] In FY2025, administrative discharges made up 47% of these actions, against 26% for courts-martial.^[6]

Fewer cases reach trial, and more of those trials end in a conviction

Sexual-assault cases that proceeded to trial fell from 363 in FY2019 to 201 in FY2025. The share of those trials ending with a conviction on at least one charge rose from 73% to 80%.^[1][6] The conviction can be for any charged offense, not necessarily the sexual-assault charge. The number of convicted subjects told they may have to register as sex offenders, a rough proxy for a sexual-offense conviction, was 72 in FY2025, well below the 161 convictions on any charge.^[6]

Contested penetrative-offense trials: the historical record

The most detailed case-level review is older. The Defense Advisory Committee on Investigation, Prosecution, and Defense of Sexual Assault in the Armed Forces (DAC-IPAD) reviewed penetrative sexual-offense investigations closed in FY2017. Of 235 cases tried to verdict, 144 (61.3%) ended in acquittal of the penetrative offense and 91 (38.7%) in conviction. The reviewers judged that 31.1% of the cases tried lacked enough admissible evidence to convict, and only 2 of those 73 ended in conviction. Of 423 cases referred to a general court-martial, 188 (44.4%) were later dismissed.^[8] In DAC-IPAD’s FY2018 adjudication data, 21.9% of contested penetrative cases ended in a conviction for the penetrative offense, and 33.6% in acquittal of all charges.^[9]

These figures predate the Office of Special Trial Counsel, which took over sexual-assault prosecution decisions at the end of 2023, so they describe the system before that change.

Appeals: fewer petitions, better odds of review

Petitions asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces (CAAF) to review a case fell from 438 in FY2019 to 235 in FY2025, a 46% drop. Grants of review rose to 57 in FY2025, the highest in the period. As a share of petitions filed that year, grants went from 11.9% to 24.3%. In FY2025, CAAF affirmed 56 cases and reversed 6 in whole or in part on its master docket.^[7]

The Office of Special Trial Counsel in its first year

For covered offenses committed after December 27, 2023, including sexual assault and domestic violence, independent special trial counsel, not commanders, decide whether to prosecute. In its first year, the Army’s Office of Special Trial Counsel reviewed more than 8,600 investigations, exercised its authority in 2,172 of them, sent about 6,000 back to commanders, preferred charges in 489 and completed 151 prosecutions.^[13] DoD-wide in FY2025, special trial counsel preferred 220 of the 340 sexual-assault preferrals.^[6]

Plea deals and judge-alone trials dominate

In FY2020, 589 of 711 court-martial convictions under the Military Justice Act of 2016 rules came from plea agreements (83%), and 96% of sentences were imposed by a military judge rather than a panel.^[12] Secondary data for FY2022 put judge-alone trials at 76% of courts-martial.^[15]

Army: Article 15s fell while general courts-martial held steady

The Army imposed 26,638 Article 15s in FY2017, or 55.93 per 1,000 Soldiers. In FY2023 it imposed 18,452, or 41.59 per 1,000, a 31% drop in the number. General courts-martial tried stayed between 439 and 568 a year over the same period.^[10] In FY2020, of 729 original Army courts-martial, 148 ended before findings, 337 were guilty pleas, 59 had mixed pleas and 185 were fully contested.^[11]

The long-term decline in military justice

Over four decades, every form of military justice has shrunk sharply. By FY2022, general courts-martial (670) outnumbered special courts-martial (509).^[14][15]

What the numbers mean if you are under investigation

If you are facing an investigation, a court-martial or a board, see Should I hire a lawyer before charges are preferred? and What happens after court-martial charges are preferred?

How we built this report

• Every number was read from the source document listed below. Figures marked “derived” are simple arithmetic on official figures, such as trials minus convictions.
• Sexual-assault figures are DoD-wide and do not include the Coast Guard.
• Gaps: the SAPRO FY2022 statistical appendix could not be retrieved, and Army and Marine Corps court-martial tables for FY2024 and FY2025 could not be read from the published PDFs. There is no official DoD-wide count of administrative separation boards.
• Conflicts: the FY2024 SAPRO appendix reports 555 administrative discharges on one page and 343 on another. For Army FY2022, the Army’s report shows 439 general and 142 BCD special courts-martial, while NIMJ’s summary shows 242 and 129, likely because of different counting rules. We use the official Army figures.
• “Tried” counts in service reports can include cases that ended before findings, so tried cases can exceed convictions plus acquittals.

This report will be updated as new annual reports are released. Data current as of October 29, 2026.