## Facts

- Senior Airman Charles D. Binegar worked in the Medical Logistics Office at Hanscom Air Force Base and ordered contact lenses for servicemembers who brought prescriptions from the Optometry Clinic.
- Some servicemembers were entitled to government-funded contact lenses (for duty performance or a medical condition); others were required to purchase lenses off base at their own expense.
- Regulations required purchase letters to accompany prescriptions and fund cites to be used depending on the basis for entitlement, with monthly billing reports tied to the relevant accounts.
- In practice, the Optometry Clinic rarely generated purchase letters, and Medical Logistics often ordered lenses without the required documentation.
- A supervisor testified he believed clinic personnel could receive free contact lenses even when not medically required and instructed Binegar to sign a purchase order for the supervisor’s lenses without a purchase letter or prescription.
- The command environment reflected lax compliance and weak monitoring of ordering and billing procedures.
- Binegar was convicted by general court-martial of four specifications of larceny of military property (contact lenses) and one specification of conspiracy to commit that larceny, under Articles 121 and 81, UCMJ.
- The military judge instructed members that mistake of fact was a defense only if Binegar’s mistake was both honest and reasonable.

## Issues

1. Whether the military judge erred by excluding defense evidence offered to show Binegar’s state of mind regarding entitlement to contact lenses.
2. Whether the military judge erred by instructing that mistake of fact required a mistake that was both “honest and reasonable,” rather than merely “honest,” for charged specific-intent offenses.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces reversed the service court’s affirmance and set aside the findings and sentence.
- The court held the mistake-of-fact instruction was erroneous because larceny and conspiracy to commit larceny are specific-intent offenses.
- For specific-intent offenses, an honest mistake of fact, even if unreasonable, negates the required intent and is a complete defense.
- Because the instructional error went to the central mens rea dispute and could not be treated as harmless, a rehearing was ordered.
- The court declined to decide the evidentiary/hearsay issue because reversal was required on the instructional error.

## Legal Principles

- For specific-intent offenses under the UCMJ, an honest mistake of fact—whether or not reasonable—negates the specific intent element and, if credited, requires acquittal.
- A mistake-of-fact instruction requiring both honesty and reasonableness improperly applies a general-intent standard to a specific-intent crime.
- An instruction that adds an extra requirement to a recognized defense and affects how members evaluate the accused’s mental state is prejudicial when the defense is supported by evidence and central to the case.
- Appellate reversal may be based solely on a dispositive instructional error, leaving unresolved evidentiary questions for possible consideration at rehearing.

## Conclusion

C.A.A.F. held that the panel was improperly instructed to require a reasonable mistake of fact for specific-intent larceny and conspiracy, set aside the convictions and sentence, and ordered a rehearing because an honest mistake alone can negate the intent to steal.


United States v. Binegar, 55 M.J. 1 (C.A.A.F. 2001)