In Solorio v. United States (1986), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that members of the U.S. military can be court-martialed for crimes committed while they are in service, regardless of where those crimes took place or whether they were related to their service duties. The case involved a Coast Guard serviceman, Gerardo Solorio, who was convicted by a court-martial for sex offenses against two young girls at his home and another private residence - both off base locations. He appealed on grounds that under an earlier ruling (O'Callahan v Parker 1969) he should have been tried in civilian courts as his alleged offenses did not occur on military property nor had any connection with his military service. The Supreme Court overruled O’Callahan’s “service connection” test stating it misinterpreted the Constitution's clause regarding court-martial jurisdiction which does not require a crime to be "service connected". It held that when Congress authorized trial by court martial it intended to include all offences committed by persons who are part of armed forces irrespective of location or nature.

In the dissenting opinion for Solorio v. United States, Justice William J. Brennan Jr., joined by Justices Thurgood Marshall and John Paul Stevens, argued that the majority's decision to overrule O'Callahan v. Parker was a departure from established principles of stare decisis (the legal principle of determining points in litigation according to precedent). They contended that there were no special justifications for overturning this precedent and criticized the majority's reasoning as an unjustified expansion of military jurisdiction at the expense of civilian authority and individual liberties. The dissenters maintained that service connection should remain a prerequisite for court-martial jurisdiction over offenses committed by servicemen in peacetime within our country’s borders, emphasizing on preserving constitutional protections against unwarranted intrusions into personal liberty.