Court-Martial Deadline Calculator
Enter the case dates you know. The calculator returns every deadline, waiting period, and effective-date rule those dates trigger under the Rules for Courts-Martial, the Military Rules of Evidence, and the UCMJ — in one chronological calendar, each linked to the governing provision. New to the sequence these dates sit in? Start with the court-martial process overview.
Verify every date before you rely on it
These dates are calendar arithmetic applied to the periods stated in the rules. They are a starting point for your own computation — not a determination of any deadline in your case. Before acting on any date here, check it against:
- the text of the rule or article itself — follow the citation link on each row and read it;
- the Military Judges’ Benchbook (EBB) instruction, where one applies;
- current case law — appellate decisions construe how these periods run, what tolls or excludes them, and how they are computed; and
- your service’s implementing regulations, which may impose shorter or additional deadlines.
The calculator does not account for excludable delay, tolling, weekends and holidays, service-specific rules, or any order of the military judge — each of which can move a real deadline. Not legal advice.
Every day- and hour-based time period (2)
| Period | Authority | Trigger & required action | Category |
|---|---|---|---|
| 120 days |
R.C.M. 304(a) (Discussion) R.C.M.
|
Runs
from charges preferred
(the earliest of several events)
The accused must be brought to trial within 120 days of preferral of charges or imposition of restraint. Discussion Excludable delay not counted
“R.C.M. 707(a) requires that the accused be brought to trial within 120 days of preferral of charges or imposition of restraint”
Discussion cross-reference; the substantive rule is R.C.M. 707(a). Excludable delay under R.C.M. 707(c) is not counted.
|
Speedy trial (cross-reference) |
| 120 days |
R.C.M. 707(a) R.C.M.
|
Runs
from charges preferred
(the earliest of several events)
The accused must be brought to trial — which R.C.M. 707(b)(1) defines as arraignment under R.C.M. 904, not the start of evidence. Excludable delay not counted
“The accused shall be brought to trial within 120 days after the earlier of …”
Runs from the EARLIEST of preferral, imposition of restraint under R.C.M. 304(a)(2)–(4), or entry on active duty under R.C.M. 204. Excludable delay under R.C.M. 707(c) is NOT accounted for — any approved pretrial delay pushes the real date later.
|
Speedy trial |
WHAT THIS COVERS
Every provision of the Rules for Courts-Martial, the Military Rules of Evidence, and the UCMJ (10 U.S.C. ch. 47) that ties a specific number of days or hours to an event: a deadline to act, a maximum permitted delay, a minimum waiting or notice period, an effective-date rule, a speedy-trial restart, a maximum punishment expressed in days, or an offense-severity threshold.
Hour-based periods are included in full. They cluster in pretrial confinement (R.C.M. 305 and Article 11 — the 24-hour report, 48-hour probable cause determination, and 72-hour commander’s decision) and in interlocutory Government appeals (R.C.M. 908 and Article 62, where three separate 72-hour obligations run from the same ruling); the rest are the R.C.M. 405(l)(1) post-hearing submission, the two advisory R.C.M. 703(g) witness-notice periods, and the Article 86 rule converting hours of absence into days. Several run alongside a day period in the same rule, so both halves appear on the timeline. An hour clock counted from a date with no time of day entered runs from midnight, and the row says so.
Only clock-driven entries are turned into dates. Maximum punishments, severity thresholds, and credit ratios (Article 15’s limits, the Article 86 absence table, the R.C.M. 305(l) confinement credit) are carried in the full reference chart but are never computed as deadlines — they are not dates. Nor are the two exceptions (R.C.M. 305(n)(1) and (n)(2)), which do the opposite: they switch off the pretrial-confinement hour clocks for a unit under an operational-necessity suspension, or for a person confined aboard a vessel at sea. Check them before relying on any R.C.M. 305 hour deadline.
HOW THE DATES ARE COUNTED
R.C.M. 103(9) supplies the default convention, and it is what this calculator applies: “When a period of time is expressed in a number of days, the period shall be in calendar days, unless otherwise specified. Unless otherwise specified, the date on which the period begins shall not count, but the date on which the period ends shall count as one day.” So the Nth day is the trigger date plus N. (R.C.M. 707(b)(1) states the same rule again for the speedy-trial clock, and confirms that “brought to trial” means arraignment under R.C.M. 904.) Calendar days means weekends and holidays are not skipped — and this tool does not skip them.
Two provisions depart from that default, and each is handled as its own rule rather than assumed:
- R.C.M. 305(j)(2) counts both ends. “[T]he initial date of confinement under military control shall count as one day and the date of the review shall also count as one day.” The 7-day pretrial confinement review (and its 10-day extension) therefore falls one day earlier than the default rule would give. Applying R.C.M. 103(9) there would report a liberty deadline a day late.
- Article 35 / R.C.M. 602 run through a day. Trial may not be held over objection through the 5th (GCM) or 3rd (SPCM) day after service, so the first permissible date is one day beyond — these rows read “Not before.”
Hour clocks are counted as elapsed hours from the time of day you enter; with no time entered they run from midnight, and the row says so in red.
Where a period appears only in a non-binding Discussion, the entry is badged as such. Where the same deadline appears in both the statute and the implementing rule — the Article 35 / R.C.M. 602 waiting period, the Article 57 / R.C.M. 1102 effective date, the Article 66/67/69 / R.C.M. 1201/1203 appeal deadlines — both are listed, because they are formally separate provisions.