Short summaries of current law, the proposed changes, new support and reporting provisions, and key protections. No statutory transcription or line-by-line legal text.
Existing Law vs. Proposed Law
The complete legal library
All 37 bill sections, exact supplied-bill language, official-source links, drafting notes, and document pages.
Current Article 93 addresses cruelty, oppression, or maltreatment toward a person subject to the accused’s orders. MAPSA would replace it with a structured article covering abuse of authority, peer misconduct, aggravated circumstances, and death-resulting offenses.
A distinct criminal offense for knowingly and wrongfully using military authority, with specific intent, to accomplish a prohibited purpose.
Proposed: 2 to 8 years of confinement and mandatory punitive separation upon conviction by general court-martial.
Article 93(b)
Cruelty, Oppression, and Maltreatment
Keeps protection for persons subject to the accused's orders and adds objectively severe, wrongful bullying, harassment, intimidation, or degradation — regardless of rank, including between peers.
Proposed: 2 to 8 years of confinement and mandatory punitive separation.
Article 93(c)
Aggravated Offenses
An underlying 93(a) or 93(b) offense becomes aggravated when the government separately alleges and proves at least one aggravating circumstance beyond a reasonable doubt.
Proposed: 5 to 15 years of confinement and mandatory punitive separation.
Article 93(d)
Criminal Maltreatment Resulting in Death
Every element must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Suicide alone does not establish criminal liability.
Proposed: 5 to 30 years of confinement and mandatory punitive separation.
Article 93(e)–(g)
Definitions and Legal Safeguards
Statutory definitions, protection of lawful military leadership, and the article's relationship to other offenses.
These are proposed offenses and sentencing ranges, not current law. Every criminal element must still be proved beyond a reasonable doubt; an allegation, investigation, or suicide alone does not establish guilt or causation.
Current law addresses specified false official statements and documents made with intent to deceive.
Proposed reform
An aggravated offense for knowing, intentional material falsification intended to cause unlawful adverse action, cause substantial material harm, conceal serious misconduct, or obstruct an official proceeding.
Safeguard: Good-faith mistakes and legitimate evaluative disagreements do not by themselves satisfy the proposed aggravated offense.
Current law criminally prohibits specified retaliatory personnel actions.
Proposed reform
Expanded and clarified protection for lawful reporting, investigative interviews, authorized command-climate surveys, communications with oversight authorities, and requests for authorized assistance.
Safeguard: The government must prove retaliatory intent; lawful, independently justified personnel actions remain permissible.
Current law generally permits conviction in a members court-martial by concurrence of at least three-fourths of voting members, with special safeguards for capital cases.
Proposed reform
Unanimous findings of guilty among all voting members.
Safeguard: Implementing rules would need to address deliberations, deadlock, mistrial, retrial, and existing capital-case safeguards.
Current law protects specified communications with Members of Congress, inspectors general, and others from reprisal.
Proposed reform
Protection for qualifying participation in interviews, surveys, disclosures, and investigations, with suspected criminal retaliation referred to the MCIO and OSTC.
Safeguard: Does not authorize unlawful classified disclosures or immunize independently criminal conduct.
New and revised in the supplied bill
Intake, records, reporting, victim assistance, and safety
Proposed Act §§ 303A, 309–310
Consistent intake, record review, and continuity
Every covered allegation would receive a documented, impartial initial assessment. After investigative closure or a final prosecutorial disposition, titling, indexing, and related personnel records would receive an automatic accuracy and retention review. Qualifying complainants would keep authorized disposition information and referral access after separation.
Safeguard: A report does not automatically require a full criminal investigation where law does not require one. Declination or acquittal does not automatically require expungement, and titling alone is not proof of misconduct.
Trained coordinators would receive reports, explain confidentiality limits, conduct initial safety screening, connect people with services and counsel, assist with protective-measure requests, and coordinate referrals through an oversight chain outside an implicated unit command.
Safeguard: Coordinators would not be criminal investigators, prosecutors, or substitute counsel. They could not decide guilt, direct investigative outcomes, or recommend punishment based solely on an untested allegation.
Covered service members could seek confidential support through a restricted report or request investigative and command notification through an unrestricted report. Authorized recipients would explain the boundaries of confidentiality before receiving substantive details whenever practicable.
Safeguard: Mandatory disclosures, independent evidence, and legally required referrals still apply. A restricted election is not a blanket promise of anonymity and does not itself create an evidentiary privilege.
A qualifying Article 93 or related retaliation complainant would be offered confidential Special Victims’ Counsel or equivalent Maltreatment Victims’ Counsel without needing an unrestricted report or charging decision. Consultation would ordinarily be available within 72 hours after request, absent documented exigent circumstances.
Safeguard: Counsel would advise and assist the client, not control prosecution or represent the government. Existing rights under 10 U.S.C. § 1044e could not be reduced.
Independent officials would assess individualized safety and retaliation risks, review military protective order requests, and consider expedited reassignment or transfer. Routine written transfer decisions would ordinarily issue within five calendar days, with interim safety action when necessary and independent appeal of denials.
Safeguard: Emergency assistance would not require probable cause, but no protective order would issue automatically against everyone named. Measures must be proportionate and nonpunitive, cannot presume guilt, and require review and conflict screening.
The updated bill adds independent administrative screening before formal separation proceedings. It also clarifies that a routine discretionary waiver cannot be used solely to circumvent a valid final military-service disqualification.
Safeguard: An allegation, OSTC declination, or investigative titling alone is insufficient. An under-other-than-honorable-conditions characterization is not automatic; applicable standards, service record, mitigation, individualized consideration, due process, and lawful correction remain required.
Choose any of the 37 supplied-bill sections to read its exact proposed language and source notes. Drafting directives remain directives; nothing on either page is enacted law.
