This article is part of a comprehensive series covering the punitive articles of the UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice). It is intended for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Service members facing any UCMJ charge should consult a qualified military defense attorney.
A soldier parks in a restricted lot because she didn’t read the updated installation policy. A petty officer skips a required maintenance check, not out of defiance, but because he was overwhelmed and forgot. A sergeant receives a personal order from a commissioned officer to remain on post and drives off base to see his girlfriend. All three are charged under Article 92. But they committed different offenses, with different elements and different maximum punishments, because Article 92 is not one crime. It is three.
Article 92 (10 U.S.C. § 892) is the UCMJ’s broadest obedience provision and, by a significant margin, its most frequently charged. It covers the territory that Articles 90 and 91 leave open, the vast landscape of noncompliance that does not involve face-to-face defiance of a specific superior. Where Article 90 requires willful disobedience of a personal command from a superior commissioned officer, and Article 91 requires the same from a warrant officer or NCO, Article 92 reaches every other form of disobedience: violations of general orders, failures to follow specific orders from anyone in the military, and the catch-all category of dereliction of duty.
General Orders, Specific Orders, and Dereliction
Article 92(1): Violation of a Lawful General Order or Regulation
A general order or regulation is one issued by a commander with authority to do so, typically a general officer, a commanding officer, or someone with the authority to issue orders applicable across a command. The prosecution must prove that the order or regulation existed, that it was lawful, and that the accused violated it. Critically, this subsection does not require proof that the accused actually knew about the specific order or regulation. The presumption is that lawful general orders and regulations are published and that service members have a duty to know them. This makes 92(1) the strictest of the three subsections from the accused’s perspective: under the MCM, ignorance of the regulation is not a defense. The MCM 2024 (Part IV, Paragraph 17) breaks Article 92 into three distinct offenses: violation of a general order or regulation, failure to obey a lawful order, and dereliction of duty.
Maximum punishment: dishonorable discharge, total forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and two years’ confinement.
Article 92(2): Failure to Obey Other Lawful Order
This subsection covers specific lawful orders that are not general orders or regulations, the personal directive from any member of the armed forces that the accused has a duty to obey. Unlike 92(1), this subsection requires actual knowledge: the prosecution must prove the accused knew about the order. Unlike Article 90, the order need not come from a superior commissioned officer. Any member of the armed forces who has authority can issue a lawful order that triggers 92(2).
The distinction between 92(2) and Article 90 is often the critical charging decision. Article 90 applies when the order comes from a superior commissioned officer and the disobedience is willful, intentional, defiant. Article 92(2) applies more broadly: the order can come from anyone with authority, and the mental state is failure to obey rather than willful disobedience. This difference in mens rea is why Article 90 carries harsher punishment. Defiance is treated more seriously than failure.
Maximum punishment: bad-conduct discharge, forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and six months’ confinement.
Article 92(3): Dereliction of Duty
This subsection criminalizes the failure to perform duties that the accused knew or reasonably should have known about. It comes in two forms: willful dereliction (the accused intentionally failed to perform) and negligent dereliction (the accused failed through neglect or culpable inefficiency). The difference matters because willful dereliction carries a harsher punishment, bad-conduct discharge and six months’ confinement, while negligent dereliction carries forfeiture of two-thirds pay for three months and three months’ confinement.
When dereliction results in death or grievous bodily harm, the punishment escalates. Willful dereliction causing death or grievous bodily harm carries a dishonorable discharge and two years’ confinement. Negligent dereliction causing the same carries a bad-conduct discharge and eighteen months.
Dereliction is the most fact-intensive of the three subsections because the threshold question is always: what were the accused’s duties? Duties can be imposed by regulation, custom of the service, standard operating procedure, or direct assignment. The prosecution must establish both the existence of the duty and the accused’s knowledge (or constructive knowledge) of it.
The Lawfulness Question That Runs Through Everything
Lawful Orders vs. Lawful Regulations
Every subsection of Article 92 requires that the order, regulation, or duty be lawful. An order that violates the Constitution, federal statute, or the law of armed conflict cannot form the basis of an Article 92 charge. An order that has no valid military purpose, one issued purely for personal reasons or to harass a subordinate, is not lawful.
But courts presume lawfulness. The burden falls on the accused to raise the issue and present evidence challenging it. In practice, this means that most Article 92 challenges to lawfulness fail unless the order is patently illegal on its face. An order to falsify records, to commit a crime, or to violate a service member’s constitutional rights can be challenged successfully. An order that the accused merely disagreed with, thought was unnecessary, or found inconvenient is presumed lawful and disobedience carries consequences.
The defense of ambiguity is more fertile. If an order or regulation was unclear, susceptible to multiple reasonable interpretations, or poorly communicated, the accused’s failure to comply may not be criminal. A regulation that the accused “reasonably should have known” still requires that a reasonable person in the accused’s position could have understood it. Vague or contradictory orders create reasonable doubt about whether the accused actually violated them.
Why Article 92 Is the Default Charge
Article 92’s breadth makes it the military prosecutor’s most versatile tool. Almost any misconduct that involves failing to do what military authority requires, or doing what it prohibits, can be framed as an Article 92 violation. Violating a safety regulation, missing a formation, ignoring a protective order, performing maintenance negligently, failing to report for duty, all potentially fall within Article 92’s three subsections.
This breadth is both the statute’s strength and its vulnerability. The strength is comprehensive coverage: no gap in obedience enforcement exists between the specific articles (90 and 91) and the general one (92). The vulnerability is overuse. Because Article 92 can be charged in almost any disciplinary context, it is sometimes used as a catch-all when a more specific article would more accurately describe the misconduct. Defense counsel routinely challenge whether the prosecution chose Article 92 because it fit the facts or because it was convenient.
The ultimate offense doctrine, established in United States v. Phillips, 74 M.J. 20, applies to Article 92 as well as to Article 90. An order given solely to escalate the punishment for expected misconduct cannot serve as the basis for an Article 92(2) charge. This doctrine prevents command from manufacturing disobedience charges by issuing orders whose only purpose is to create a more serious offense when the accused inevitably violates them.
Article 92 sits at the base of the UCMJ’s obedience framework. Articles 90 and 91 criminalize specific, personal, willful defiance of identified superiors, the most direct threats to the chain of command. Article 92 catches everything else: the regulations that went unread, the orders that went unfollowed, the duties that went unperformed. In a system that depends on obedience as its operating principle, Article 92 is the provision that makes the principle enforceable at every level, against every type of noncompliance, regardless of who gave the order or how the failure occurred.
Joseph L. Jordan, Attorney at Law: Article 92 is the UCMJ’s broadest obedience provision, covering three separate offenses: violation of a lawful general order or regulation, failure to obey a lawful order, and dereliction of duty. It is the most frequently charged article alongside Article 86.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. No attorney-client relationship is created by reading this content. If you are facing charges under the UCMJ or need legal guidance regarding military justice matters, consult a qualified military defense attorney.