- 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
CAAF Opinion Digest · III.A.71 · Crimes Pre-2019 offenses
Article 134 -- Debt, Dishonorably Failing to Pay
Offenses committed before 1 January 2019 (pre-2016 amendment) — opinions from the 1999 through 2020 Terms of Court.
1 digested opinion, 2002–2002 Terms
2002
Source and status
This is a verbatim mirror of the Opinion Digest and opinions tables published by the United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces. The headnotes are the court staff’s summaries of the opinions, reproduced as published; they are not the opinions themselves and not this site’s commentary. Nothing here is edited on this site.
Last updated by the court: Oct 13, 2026 · mirrored Oct 29, 2026 · digest page IIIA71 · Always confirm a holding against the opinion itself (linked from each case name).