History of the UCMJ

The UCMJ is the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Ernesto Gapasin is an accomplished military justice defense attorney who writes occasionally for the eTimes Herald News.

The US Constitution gives Congress the right to regulate land and sea forces in Article 1, Section 8. But how did we get from there to the modern Uniform Code of Military Justice?

Ernesto Gapasin writes on the UCMJ – the Uniform Code of Military Justice from the Articles of War.

The United States Congress first enacted legislation for regulating the military in 1806 known as the Articles of War. These were an update to the Articles of War passed by the Second Continental Congress in 1775. The Articles of War mostly applied to the Army; the Navy counterpart was the Articles for the Government of the United State Navy, colloquially referred to as “Rocks and Shoals.”  While the Articles of War would receive major revisions in 1916, 1920, and 1948, the Navy code remained largely unchanged. Both Articles would be replaced in 1950 by the Uniform Code of Military Justice, signed into law by President Harry S. Truman. The word “uniform” derives from its application to all branches of the military.

Since its inception, the UCMJ has evolved, often in parallel to civilian law. At times, the UCMJ has even anticipated changes that would later apply to the general populace. For instance, the military system had a rights statement similar to the Miranda warning fifteen years before the Supreme Court ruling in Miranda v. Arizona. The UCMJ last received a major overhaul in 2012, updating the code to include presidential changes as well as those mandated by the National Defense Authorization Acts of 2006 and 2007.

The first page of the UCMJ – the Uniform Code of Military Justice, 1887.