2024 Amendments to the Manual for Courts Martial, United States

The order amends Parts II, III, IV, and V of the Manual for Courts-Martial, United States — the comprehensive set of rules governing military criminal trials — effective December 20, 2024. It also separately prescribes regulations implementing the randomized selection of qualified personnel as court-martial members (the military equivalent of jurors) to the maximum extent practicable, as required by the James M. Inhofe National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023. Two specific sets of rule amendments carry different effective dates: amendments to Rules for Courts-Martial 908(c)(3), 1205(a), and 1209(a)(1) take effect December 22, 2024, and an amendment to R.C.M. 503(a)(1) takes effect December 23, 2024.

The order includes standard non-retroactivity protections: no amendment makes punishable any act that was lawful when committed, and no amendment invalidates proceedings — including arraignments, preliminary hearings, or nonjudicial punishment actions — that were already underway before the relevant effective date.

Active-duty military service members facing court-martial proceedings, military judges, convening authorities who select court-martial panels, defense counsel and prosecutors in military courts, and commanding officers conducting nonjudicial punishment actions.

Military criminal proceedings going forward must use randomized panel-member selection, reducing the ability of commanders to hand-pick court-martial juries. Cases already in progress before the relevant effective dates proceed under prior rules, preserving ongoing proceedings.

The amendments take effect on three staggered dates (December 20, 22, and 23, 2024) depending on which procedural rules are involved. The detailed substantive changes are contained in an annex that was published as graphic images and is not reproduced in machine-readable text. The non-retroactivity and savings clauses ensure that proceedings already begun — from nonjudicial punishment through arraignment — continue under whichever rules applied when they started, shielding both the government and accused from mid-proceeding rule changes.