CORE CRIMINAL LAW SUBJECTS: Crimes: Article 134 -- Debt, Dishonorably Failing to Pay

2002

United States v. Bullman, 56 MJ 377 (a mere failure to pay a debt does not establish dishonorable conduct; even a negligent failure to pay a debt is not dishonorable; the term "dishonorable" connotes a state of mind amounting to gross indifference or bad faith, and is characterized by deceit, evasion, false promises, denial of indebtedness, or other distinctly culpable circumstances).

(appellant’s plea to dishonorably failing to pay a debt was improvident where: (1) the military judge did not define the term "dishonorable" during his inquiry into the plea; (2) the military judge did not mention the term as it applied to the debt, nor did he tell appellant whether the term as applied to the bad checks had the same meaning when applied to the debt; (3) the military judge did not elicit a sufficient factual predicate for the guilty plea to dishonorably failing to pay the AAFES debt; (4) there is nothing in the plea inquiry showing why appellant believed that his conduct regarding the AAFES debt was characterized by deceit, evasion, false promises, or other distinctly culpable circumstances indicating a deliberate nonpayment or grossly indifferent attitude; (5) the military judge elicited only legal conclusions, in which appellant repeated verbatim the conclusions in the written stipulation of fact - a rote recitation of the elements of the offense was inadequate; and (6) appellant made statements and stipulated to facts inconsistent with dishonorable conduct).



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