Saturday Night Jurisdiction over Reserve Soldiers, Part II

By COL T. Scott Randall

June 1, 2026 | Army Lawyer, 2026 Issue #2

Read Time: < 18 mins

U.S. Soldiers with Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 112th Infantry Regiment, 56th Stryker Brigade Combat Team ruck march near the Cambridge Springs Readiness Center during their IDT in Cambridge Springs, PA. (Credit: SSG Jonathan Campbell)

It is well-settled law that Reserve Soldiers are subject to the UniformCode of Military Justice (UCMJ) between consecutive periods of inactive-duty training (IDT) (e.g., the Saturday evening of a typical battle assembly weekend).¹ However, the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces (CAAF) has recently constricted the Military Services’ ability to exercise jurisdiction over Reserve Component (RC) Service members.² In United States v. Taylor, CAAF found that while Congress had explicitly expanded UCMJ jurisdiction over RC personnel to include “intervals between consecutive periods of IDT on consecutive days,” it had not broadened the Services’ ability to order such Service members to active duty for courts-martial purposes.³ This ruling effectively nullifies the jurisdictional expansion provided by Congress in 2017 and places the Military Services in the same uncertain position regarding UCMJ jurisdiction as they were prior to 2017.⁴

UCMJ Jurisdiction over Reserve Soldiers Prior to the Military Justice Act of 2016

As detailed in the seminal article in The Army Lawyer on this issue, Saturday Night Jurisdiction over Reserve Soldiers, there are two categories of duty to which personal jurisdiction attaches to RC Soldiers.⁵ The first is active duty. For RC Soldiers, UCMJ jurisdiction attaches “from the dates when they are required by the terms of the call or order to obey it.”⁶ Courts have interpreted this provision to attach UCMJ jurisdiction immediately after midnight on the date the active-duty order begins.⁷ Therefore, an RC Soldier issued an annual training order, active-duty for training order, or active-duty for operational support order would be subject to the UCMJ at one minute (or, technically, one second) past midnight on the date their order begins.⁸ This time-based rule was in effect prior to 2017 and remains the law concerning RC Soldiers under active-duty orders.⁹

The second category of duty for RC Soldiers subject to UCMJ jurisdiction is IDT.¹⁰ Prior to 2017, an RC Soldier was subject to the UCMJ “while on inactive-duty training, but in the case of members of the Army National Guard of the United States or the Air National Guard of the United States only when in Federal service.”¹¹ In United States v. Wolpert, the Army Court of CriminalAppeals found no jurisdiction under UCMJArticle 2(a)(3) when a Reserve Soldier wasaccused of sexual assault that occurred ona Saturday evening after battle assembly inGovernment-provided lodging.¹² It held that“[t]he military judge’s finding that the IDTperiod ended when appellee signed out of thesecond [unit training assembly] on Saturdayat 1700 . . . is not clearly erroneous . . . [andthus] we conclude there was not jurisdictionunder Article 2(a)(3).”¹³ The court reasonedthat the four-hour IDT period performed bythe appellant on Saturday afternoon, whichconcluded by his signing out of the unit forpay purposes, was the discrete period duringwhich he was subject to UCMJ jurisdictionunder Article 2(a)(3).¹⁴ Therefore, followingsign-out, the Soldier was no longer “on IDT”within the meaning of Article 2(a)(3) eventhough the Soldier received the benefit ofGovernment-funded lodging.

Importantly, the Wolpert court did not foreclose the possibility of jurisdiction extending beyond four-hour IDT periods.¹⁵ The court emphasized that it was not clearly erroneous for the trial court to find that the act of signing out constituted the end of the IDT period for jurisdictional purposes.¹⁶ The court reasoned that under the unit’s drill schedule in Wolpert, “a reservist would have no additional duties the rest of the duty day after signing out” as the salient fact extinguishing jurisdiction.¹⁷ This finding intimates that a later sign-out time and/or additional duties could extend the IDT period for jurisdictional purposes beyond its minimum four hours of duration.

The Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals took up this same issue in United States v. Hale, a case decided in January of 2018.¹⁸Because the misconduct at issue occurredbefore the effective date of the MilitaryJustice Act of 2016’s changes to the UCMJ,the jurisdictional analysis still focused on themeaning of “while on inactive-duty training.”¹⁹ The court noted that “unlike othertypes of reserve duty, an IDT is not a tourbut a block of time. Specifically, it is a designated ‘four-hour period of training, duty orinstruction.’”²⁰ In finding no jurisdiction forthe primary offense, the court reasoned thatHale received pay and points solely for theIDT blocks he was authorized to completeand nothing more.²¹ Therefore, the periodsoutside of these IDT blocks were not eligiblefor UCMJ jurisdiction.²²

While acknowledging Hale’s entitlement to reimbursement for lodging the evenings following the performance of IDT, the court stated that such an entitlement does not confer jurisdiction.²³ The court concluded, “We now squarely address jurisdiction over conduct occurring outside a block of IDTs and agree with our sister court’s interpretation in Wolpert” that a Service member is not on IDT outside of these four-hour periods.²⁴

While appearing authoritative on the issue of whether UCMJ jurisdiction can extend beyond four-hour IDT periods, the Air Force regulation cited in Hale is very different from the Army’s regulation on this issue.²⁵ Under Air Force Instruction (AFI) 36-2254V1, Reserve Personnel Participation, IDT is “a 4-hour period of training, duty, or instruction . . . [that] can be longer . . . under unusual circumstances.”²⁶ In contrast, Army Regulation (AR) 140-1, para. 3-4(b) states that a unit training assembly (UTA) (a unit’s normal form of IDT on a battle assembly weekend) is a “scheduled training assembly of at least 4 hours, including roll call and rest periods.”²⁷ Therefore, four hours is the minimum amount of time for an IDT period under AR 140-1.²⁸

Unlike the regulation at issue in Hale, AR 140-1 contemplates IDT periods extending beyond the minimum four-hour block of time, especially when units are training in a field environment where overnight bivouacking is part of the training.²⁹ Hence, much like Wolpert, Hale does not foreclose the ability to extend UCMJ jurisdiction for IDT beyond four-hour blocks of time. It does, however, call for some additional military duties (albeit under unusual circumstances) to require the extension of time.

UCMJ Jurisdiction over Reserve Soldiers After the Military Justice Act of 2016

In the National Defense Authorization Act of 2017 (which implements the Military Justice Act of 2016), Congress expanded jurisdiction over RC Service members to resolve the jurisdictional challenges identified in cases like Wolpert and Hale.³⁰ It added three subgroups to Article 2(a)(3) of the UCMJ, and it removed the phrase “while on inactive-duty training” altogether.³¹ Jurisdiction over RC Service members now includes: (1) members traveling to and from the IDT training site; (2) intervals between consecutive periods of IDT on the same day, pursuant to orders or regulations; and (3) intervals between IDTs on consecutive days, pursuant to orders or regulations.³²

This jurisdictional expansion placed UCMJ jurisdiction over IDTs much closer to the jurisdictional approach to tours of active duty, with some caveats.³³ Commanders now have jurisdictional authority over Soldiers from the moment Soldiers travel to battle assembly to the moment they return home at the end of a battle assembly weekend.³⁴ The clear difference with active duty is that IDT jurisdiction does not begin after midnight on the date the Soldier has duty. Rather, it begins upon a Soldier’s departure for battle assembly.³⁵ Conversely, jurisdiction concludes over a period of IDT when the Soldier returns home from battle assembly, while jurisdiction concludes for periods of active duty at midnight on the last day of a Soldier’s order.³⁶ Therefore, in those two instances, the exact moments when UCMJ jurisdiction begins and ends remains a question of fact even after the statutory changes.

United States v. Taylor

With the jurisdictional landscape over RC Service members becoming untrammeled by the Military Justice Act of 2016, CAAF altered the jurisdictional landscape once again with its holding in United States v. Taylor.³⁷ In this case, Taylor’s Reserve unit conducted battle assembly on Saturday and Sunday, 7 and 8 December 2019.³⁸ On Saturday evening, Taylor attended a party at a Service member’s home.³⁹ During this party, he allegedly sexually assaulted another Service member.⁴⁰ Because the alleged assault occurred between IDT periods on consecutive days (Saturday evening), the Air Force exercised personal jurisdiction over the Airman under UCMJ Article 2(a)(3) and ordered him to active duty for court-martial purposes.⁴¹ For the order to active duty, UCMJ Article 2(d)(1) provides in relevant part that a “member of a Reserve component . . . may be ordered to active duty involuntarily for the purpose of . . . trial by court-martial.”⁴²

U.S. Army California National Guard Soldiers from the 1-160th Infantry Battalion conduct weapon qualification at the range during their IDT at Camp Roberts, CA. (Credit: SSG Chau Le)

However, on appeal, Taylor argued the Air Force was precluded from ordering him to active duty under Article 2(d)(1) because he was not “on active duty or on inactive-duty training” at the time of the alleged offense.⁴³ This fact became salient because Article 2(d)(2) limits the ability to order an RC Service member to active duty for courts-martial purposes.⁴⁴ It states, “A member of a Reserve component may not be ordered to active duty under [Article 2(d)(1)] except with respect to an offense committed while the member was on active duty; or on inactive-duty training.”⁴⁵ Therefore, Taylor argued that the Air Force could not exercise the expanded personal jurisdiction provided in Article 2(a)(3) because Congress had not amended Article 2(d)(2) to allow the Air Force to order him to active duty for court-martial purposes unless he was alleged to have committed the act while on IDT.⁴⁶ Here, he is alleged to have assaulted a Service member during the interval between periods of IDT.⁴⁷

CAAF agreed. It reasoned that the plain language of Article 2(d)(2) precluded the Air Force from ordering Taylor to active duty in this case.⁴⁸ It stated that Congress could have amended Article 2(d)(2) to cover intervals between consecutive IDT periods, but it chose not to do so.⁴⁹ The court rejected the Air Force’s argument that Article 2(a)(3) changed the meaning of IDT to include the periods a Service member is performing IDT and the intervals in between, i.e., that IDT had become a term of art that contains both of these time periods.⁵⁰ However, the court found no ambiguity in the meaning of IDT and rejected the argument that Article 2(a)(3) had expanded the meaning of the term.⁵¹

The court further rejected the Air Force’s argument that a plain reading of Article 2(d)(2) would lead to the absurd result of Congress expressly expanding jurisdiction in Article 2(a)(3) but then limiting this expansion by another provision.⁵² The court found that the absurdity doctrine did not apply in this case because the result was not so shocking to the general or moral common sense as to become absurd.⁵³ It stated that “an ‘unintentional drafting gap’ is insufficient to warrant judicial correction; correction is the province of Congress in cases where an admittedly ‘anomalous’ result ‘may seem odd, but . . . is not absurd.’”⁵⁴ Therefore, in the aftermath of Taylor, the state of jurisdiction over RC Service members has essentially returned to its pre-Military Justice Act of 2016 condition. A military Service may only exercise personal jurisdiction over a Service member with respect to IDT when the Service member is on IDT, and not during periods in between.⁵⁵

Conclusion

UCMJ jurisdiction over RC Service members has returned to a less-settled state. Although the Military Services may have personal jurisdiction over an RC Service member in the interval(s) between IDT periods under Article 2(a)(3), they must be able to show that the RC Service member was conducting IDT in this interval to be able to order them to active duty for court-martial purposes.⁵⁶ For the Military Services, this means they would need to eliminate the interval between IDT periods altogether to be able to exercise jurisdiction. This elimination could be achieved by not conducting a sign-out on Saturday afternoon and ordering Soldiers to a specific lodging while maintaining the indicia of military authority over these Soldiers. The task would be to make battle assembly look more like field training, where Service members are clearly conducting duties and are under military control. Courts are hesitant to recognize UCMJ jurisdiction over RC Service members when there is a question of statutory interpretation.⁵⁷ Therefore, it is up to the commanders on the ground to come as close as possible to actual training and related activities to establish jurisdiction. TAL

Notes