## Facts

- Airman First Class Steven Manginell was deployed to Panama during Operation Just Cause and assigned to guard a warehouse under U.S. control.
- While on guard duty, he wrongfully took non-military personal property from the warehouse: one camera and four watches.
- He also took a U.S. vehicle-registration sticker, charged separately as larceny.
- The government charged the camera-and-watches theft as “looting” under Article 134, as defined in the Manual for Courts-Martial, rather than as Article 121 larceny.
- Manginell pleaded guilty to looting (camera and watches) and to larceny (registration sticker).
- A general court-martial sentenced him to a bad-conduct discharge, six months’ confinement, reduction in rank, and partial forfeitures for six months.
- On appeal, Manginell challenged the providence of his guilty plea to looting, arguing looting requires force or violence and his conduct was nonviolent.

## Issues

1. Whether looting under Article 134, as defined in the Manual for Courts-Martial, requires that property be taken by “force or violence.”
2. Whether Manginell’s guilty plea to looting was provident where he admitted a wrongful taking in an operational/war-zone setting but no force or violence.

## Decision

- The Air Force Court of Military Review affirmed the looting conviction and held the guilty plea provident.
- The court rejected the claim that looting includes an element of force or violence.
- The court held that theft in a combat/operational environment under military control, under circumstances prejudicial to good order and discipline or service-discrediting, fits the Manual’s looting offense.
- The court affirmed the findings and the sentence.

## Legal Principles

- Under Article 134, the President may specify offenses in the Manual for Courts-Martial that fall within Article 134’s clauses addressing prejudice to good order and discipline and service-discrediting conduct.
- Looting, as defined in the Manual, is a context-aggravated wrongful taking tied to war, disaster, riot, or similar conditions and an area subject to military operations or control; it does not require force or violence unless the definition includes it.
- A guilty plea is provident when the accused admits facts establishing each element of the charged offense as defined and acknowledges the wrongful and service-discrediting or discipline-prejudicial character of the conduct.
- Charging disparities with other servicemembers do not, by themselves, invalidate a properly supported charge or render a guilty plea improvident.

## Conclusion

The court upheld Manginell’s conviction, concluding that looting under Article 134 does not require force or violence and that his admitted wrongful taking of property while guarding a warehouse during military operations provided a sufficient factual basis for a provident guilty plea and an affirmed sentence.


United States v. Manginell, 32 M.J. 891 (A.F.C.M.R. 1991)