Highest military court overturns convictions related to inappropriate messages

Fernando M. Brown, who was a Chief at the time he faced trial for inappropriate messages sent to a Chief-related group chat, saw a reduction to E-6. Brown also faced 30 days restriction and a reprimand. He retired after this event. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces overturned convictions related to two of the text messages that got Brown into trouble. However, the conviction related to the message consisting of crude drawing of male “jewels” was not overturned.

From the Navy Times:

First, the court found that a military member can be convicted under Article 91 for disrespectful conduct toward a warrant, noncommissioned or petty officer even when the disrespect occurs outside the physical presence of the victim.

In other words, disrespect sent via text is still criminally actionable, according to the court.

Second, troops only can be held criminally liable if they conveyed disrespectful language while the victim was “in the execution of his or her office.”

Put another way, the victim has to have been on duty when the disrespectful language occurred.

The only one of Brown’s convictions not overturned involved a text Brown sent to the Chief’s Mess group that showed “a crude drawing of male genitalia” on the photo of a chief referred to in records only as “J.D.”

Chief J.D. was working “down in dry dock” when Brown sent the message, and was therefore doing his job when the infraction occurred, according to the ruling.

But the appeals court threw out two other instances where Brown sent inappropriate messages to the chief’s mess thread, because the chief and senior chief victims were not on the job when Brown sent the images.

In one instance, Brown sent a picture that “depicted a scantily clad man” to the chief’s mess thread after a senior chief petty officer identified only as “K.B.” missed a chief’s call.

“Found out why [K.B.] missed chiefs [sic] call,” Brown wrote, according to the appeals court.

The Navy Times has additional information here.

Category: Coast Guard