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Punitive Articles of the UCMJ

Article 120a, Stalking

By Rod Powers, About.com

TEXT

Any person subject to this section:

(1) who wrongfully engages in a course of conduct directed at a specific person that would cause a reasonable person to fear death or bodily harm, including sexual assault, to himself or herself or a member of his or her immediate family;

(2) who has knowledge, or should have knowledge, that the specific person will be placed in reasonable fear of death or bodily harm, including sexual assault, to himself or herself or a member of his or her immediate family; and

(3) whose acts induce reasonable fear in the specific person of death or bodily harm, including sexual assault, to himself or herself or to a member of his or her immediate family; is guilty of stalking and shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.

DEFINITIONS

(1) The term "course of conduct" means:

    (A) a repeated maintenance of visual or physical proximity to a specific person; or

    (B) a repeated conveyance of verbal threat, written threats, or threats implied by conduct, or a combination of such threats, directed at or towards a specific person.

(2) The term "repeated," with respect to conduct, means two or more occasions of such conduct.

(3) The term "immediate family," in the case of a specific person, means a spouse, parent, child, or sibling of the person, or any other family member, relative, or intimate partner of the person who regularly resides in the household of the person or who within the six months preceding the commencement of the course of conduct regularly resided in the household of the person.

ELEMENTS OF THE OFFENSE

(1) That the accused wrongfully engaged in a course of conduct directed at a specific person that would cause a reasonable person to fear death or bodily harm to himself or herself or a member of his or her immediate family;

(2) That the accused had knowledge, or should have had knowledge, that the specific person would be placed in reasonable fear of death or bodily harm to himself or herself or a member of his or her immediate family; and

(3) That the accused's acts induced reasonable fear in the specific person of death or bodily harm to himself or herself or to a member of his or her immediate family.

LESSER INCLUDED OFFENSES

Article 80 -- attempts.

MAXIMUM PUNISHMENT

Dishonorable discharge, forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and confinement for 3 years.

Next Article > Article 121 -Larceny and wrongful appropriation >

Above Information from the Manual for Court Martial

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