## Facts

- United States Airman Brian Jack was apprehended in the early morning hours at a women’s dormitory.
- Security personnel observed Jack leaving a female airman’s dorm room through a window onto an exterior ledge approximately three stories above the ground.
- At the time he was seen exiting, Jack was dressed in sweatpants and tennis shoes and wore a nylon stocking as a cap.
- Jack said he went to visit a friend, Jackie Holloway, but she was not in.
- Jack explained that he then attempted to reach Holloway’s room by walking along the outside ledge and entering through a window.
- Jack was caught exiting Room 315 but claimed he was trying to go to Room 317 and had mistaken the room number.
- Jack was charged at a general court-martial with unlawful entry (treated as a general-intent offense under Article 134, UCMJ) and pleaded guilty.
- On appeal, Jack argued that his statements showed a mistake of fact about which room he intended to enter and that this inconsistency made his guilty plea improvident.

## Issues

1. Whether Jack’s claim that he intended to enter a different dorm room (Room 317 rather than Room 315) raised a mistake-of-fact defense that conflicted with his guilty plea to unlawful entry.
2. Whether, given the general-intent nature of unlawful entry, a mistake about the room number could negate the intent element so as to require setting aside the guilty plea.

## Decision

- The United States Air Force Court of Military Review affirmed the conviction.
- The court held that Jack’s guilty plea to unlawful entry was provident.
- The court concluded that Jack’s asserted mistake about the room number did not negate the general intent required for unlawful entry and did not create a substantial conflict with his admissions of wrongful entry.

## Legal Principles

- A military judge may accept a guilty plea only if the accused’s admissions establish each element of the offense and the record does not show a substantial conflict between the plea and the accused’s statements.
- If, during a guilty-plea inquiry, the accused’s statements reasonably raise an affirmative defense that would be complete if true, the inconsistency must be resolved or the plea cannot stand.
- Unlawful entry under Article 134 is a general-intent offense; it is enough that the accused intentionally entered a place where he had no authority to be, under circumstances that make the entry wrongful.
- For general-intent offenses, mistake of fact is a defense only when the mistake is honestly held and reasonable, and when the facts as the accused believed them to be would make the conduct not criminal.
- A mistake about an incidental detail (such as the precise room number) does not defeat criminal liability when the accused’s intended conduct—entering a women’s dorm room at night through a window from an exterior ledge—would still be unauthorized and wrongful even if the mistake were accepted as true.

## Conclusion

United States v. Jack upheld a guilty plea to unlawful entry where the accused claimed he meant to enter a different dorm room than the one he actually entered. The court ruled that the room-number mistake did not amount to a mistake of fact that would excuse the conduct or negate the general intent required for unlawful entry, because the accused’s own account still described an intentional, unauthorized nighttime entry into a female airman’s dorm room by climbing along an exterior ledge and entering through a window.


United States v. Jack, 10 M.J. 572 (1980)