You need DD Form 494, and this page gives you the blank plus the steps for handling it. Start with what the form does: Court-Martial Data Sheet. Its official title is DD Form 494, Court-Martial Data Sheet, October 1984.
Then look at the edition date: not stated, publisher status not stated. After that, ask whether the form covers your situation. It almost certainly does regardless of your branch — DD forms run Department-wide rather than through a single service.
Then settle the schedule. You are working under not stated, with not stated responsible for the document, and your organization layers its own deadlines on that. Ask before you assume a date.
Before you download, pick your approach — editable file or printed page. What follows covers the formats first, then the entries, then what you do afterward.
Begin at the top and move down. Enter your identifying data first, then the body of the form, then the signature block. The sequence is printed in that order because entries below frequently follow from entries above.
Before your first entry, look at the corner of the page and compare the printed date with not stated. If they do not match, stop and download again. Old copies circulate in shared drives for years, and a DD form is revised centrally for every service at once, so a superseded blank may not carry the fields your reviewer expects.
Take the fields in order and answer all of them. Mark inapplicable items N/A instead of leaving white space. When you reach a date, copy the format shown on the form, since a reviewer reading a different convention may misread your entry entirely.
When you reach a Privacy Act Statement, read it before you continue. It tells you the legal authority for collecting your information, what the Department does with it, who else may see it, and whether you have to answer at all. That last point is worth knowing before you supply personal identifiers, not after.
Sign last, and sign properly. On paper that means ink in the signature block. Electronically it means a digital signature, usually applied with your Common Access Card in a reader that supports it. Typing your name into the field does not sign anything. Then add the date beside your signature — an unsigned or undated form is the most common reason one comes back.
Then check your work against the usual failures: an obsolete edition, empty required boxes, handwriting nobody can read after scanning, wrong date format, missing signature or date.
If a particular field puzzles you, read the instructions printed on the form first, then go to not stated. When the two disagree, follow the directive.
Download the form
Begin by choosing a file. Available here: PDF. Plan for 6 pages and about 200 entries.
Take the pdf if you are unsure. Then check which kind you have: if the boxes highlight when you click them, you have a fillable pdf and can type straight into it, and your entries save with the file. If nothing highlights, you have a printable pdf — send it to a printer and use black ink.
Prefer typing over writing. Your form will likely be scanned and emailed onward, and typed text reproduces at every stage while pen strokes fade or blur. When you do write, print in capitals so the receiving clerk can read it.
Check your software before choosing xfdl. That format belongs to IBM Lotus Forms, long used for Defense form distribution, and it needs the matching viewer. Get the viewer installed, then come back for the file.
You will not be charged for any of these; the whole set is free. Before you start entering data, save the file to your computer and open it there. Fields behave far more reliably in a desktop reader than in a browser preview.
What the form asks for
- 1. OJAG number.
- 2. Name (last, first, middle initial).
- 4. Rank.
- 5. Unit/command name.
- Section A. Pretrial and trial procedure. 6.a. If a general court-martial, was the accused represented by civilian or military counsel of his/her own selection or by qualified counsel? Trial Counsel (TC). Press space bar to mark X in first box if yes, second box if no.
- Special court-martial convening authority (SPCMCA). X first box if yes, second box if no.
- General Court-Martial convening authority or Judge Advocate General (GMC/JA). X first box if yes, second box if no.
- Office of the Judge Advocate General (OJAG). X first box if yes, second box if no.
- 6.b. If not, did the accused waive his/her right to representation? TC: X first box if yes, second box if no.
- SPCMCA. X first box if yes, second box if no.
- GMC/JA. X first box if yes, second box if no.
- OJAG. X first box if yes, second box if no.
- 7. Does the record show place, date and hour of each session, the assembly and each opening and closing thereafter? TC: X first box if yes, second box if no.
- SPCMCA. X first box if yes, second box if no.
- GMC/JA. X first box if yes, second box if no.
- OJAG. X first box if yes, second box if no.
- 8.a. Are all convening and amending orders of courts to which charges were referred entered in the record? TC: X first box if yes, second box if no.
- SPCMCA. X first box if yes, second box if no.
- GMC/JA. X first box if yes, second box if no.
- OJAG. X first box if yes, second box if no.
- 8.b. Are court members named in the convening orders, detailed military judge if any, counsel and the accused accounted for as present or absent? TC: X first box if yes, second box if no.
- SPCMCA. X first box if yes, second box if no.
- GMC/JA. X first box if yes, second box if no.
- OJAG. X first box if yes, second box if no.
With the form finished, route it to the office named in not stated or in your organization's own instruction. Keep a copy first. People rarely regret having one and frequently regret not having one.
If the form points you to another document, you can find it by number alone. DD numbering runs across the whole Department, so you do not need to work out which service issued it — one number, one form, everywhere.
Be careful when a procedure pairs this form with a service form. Read the prefix, not just the digits. Service forms answer to a service proponent, while DD forms answer to not stated or an equivalent Department office, and the two sequences were never aligned. Grabbing the wrong prefix gets you a form that has nothing to do with your task.
Plan to repeat this step whenever the form comes up again. Revisions follow directive changes, changes in what data is collected, and updates to notice language. Since nobody notifies you, check not stated at download and you have covered it.
One thing this page does not do: tell you whether your submission will be accepted. We publish the document and explain how to complete it, and that is where our role ends. Nothing here is legal advice. Take questions about eligibility, applicability or procedure to not stated, to your servicing personnel office, or to the office named in not stated.
Questions and answers
- What is DD Form 494?
- DD Form 494, Court-Martial Data Sheet, October 1984
- Which edition is current?
- Not stated by the publisher
- Who is responsible for this form?
- Not stated
- In which formats can it be downloaded?