2024 (October Term)
United States v. Saul, 86 M.J. 30 (Article 109, UCMJ, establishes offenses concerning the destruction of nonmilitary property; it provides in relevant part that any person subject to this chapter who willfully and wrongfully destroys or damages any property other than military property of the United States shall be punished as a court-martial may direct; Article 109, UCMJ, requires that the government prove the accused had the specific intent of destroying or damaging property, as opposed to merely intending to do an act without necessarily intending for the act to damage or destroy property).
(Appellant's plea of guilty to the specification of willfully and wrongfully destroying nonmilitary property, a car windshield, under Article 109, UCMJ, was improvident given his repeated statements that he did not intend to damage the windshield; the military judge never resolved the substantial inconsistency between any inference that appellant willfully and wrongfully destroyed a windshield and his earlier express statements that he did not intend to damage the windshield; even if a military judge could lawfully infer that appellant acted willfully and wrongfully based on his knowledge of the natural and probable consequences of his action, that inference substantially conflicted with appellant's repeated statements that he did not intend to damage the windshield; and nothing in the plea inquiry resolved this substantial inconsistency).
(in this case, precedent has established that an accused must destroy property willfully and wrongfully to violate Article 109, UCMJ; appellant's express statements that he did not intentionally damage the windshield were therefore inconsistent with his plea of guilty to violating Article 109, UCMJ).