Manual for Courts-Martial, United States 2019 edition

MANUAL FOR COURTS-MARTIAL UNITED STATES: 2019 EDITION

For those interested, here are some Army training materials on the new amendments to the Manual for Courts-Martial. This is an executive summary of the major changes to military law starting in January 2019. Over the next three months we’ll be updating our page, our book, and our blog to reflect these major changes.

The manual modernizes several criminal offenses involving computer crimes, retaliation, credit card fraud, and updates definitions. For instance, there is a lower blood alcohol level in drunk driving cases and new definitions in stalking and assault cases.

One of the most notable changes is the creation of a new special court-martial forum composed of a military judge alone and new procedures for selecting members in other special and general courts-martial. We will be updating our panel selection page soon to reflect those changes.

There are changes to plea bargaining and sentencing. The manual creates a binding pretrial agreement and a procedure for the government to appeal sentences that they consider unreasonable.

The manual broadens the powers of military judge’s to issue subpoenas prior to referral of charges.