The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces in Washington, D.C. is the military’s highest court of appeals. The court recently upheld a lower appeal court’s dismissal in the case of an airman found guilty of indecent conduct for engaging in sexual acts with a 4-foot-tall silicone doll resembling a child. (Alexander Banerjee/Stars and Stripes)
The military’s highest court has upheld the dismissal of a case involving an airman who said he performed sexual acts with a childlike silicone doll in the privacy of his dorm room.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces on Monday affirmed the judgment of the Air Force criminal appeals court, which ruled that Airman Zachary Rocha’s conduct was constitutionally protected.
In the court’s majority opinion, justices wrote they lacked the authority to make their own findings of fact and reviewed an appeals’ court decision for the application of “correct legal principles.”
The high court wrote that it was not sure another review by the Air Force appeals court was justified, stating justices answered the most important question when they “stated Rocha had a constitutionally protected liberty interest to privately engage in sexual activities with his doll,” according to court papers.
But in a scathing dissent from the majority, the court’s top judge warned the decision lowers the legal threshold for deviant behavior among personnel and sends a message that the U.S. military’s justice system accepts “the unabashed sexualization of children.”
“And so,” wrote Chief Judge Keith Ohlson, “hundreds of thousands of servicemembers who serve in the Air Force and Space Force are now authorized to penetrate … child sex dolls while on base and at their leisure. “
“This result is indefensible,” he said, writing alongside Judge John Sparks, who joined in dissent.
The 3-2 decision concludes a case that took five years for the U.S. military’s legal system to resolve.
In March 2021, Rocha was convicted in a general court-martial at Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho, of one count of indecent conduct for “engaging in sexual acts with a sex doll with the physical characteristics of a female child,” according to court documents.
A panel of officers, the equivalent to a jury in civilian court, found his behavior discredited the armed forces and sentenced him to a bad conduct discharge and 90 days in jail.
Rocha admitted to purchasing a silicone sex doll, described in court filings as being about 4 feet tall with female prepubescent features.
It was discovered in his room about three weeks after he bought the doll during an on-base dormitory inspection.
Those who saw the clothed doll on Rocha’s bed said they were startled by its lifelike appearance, according to court documents.
An Air Force investigator testified in 2021 that he “saw a doll that scared (him) because it kind of looked like a child,” according to court filings.
Rocha told investigators he benefited emotionally from the doll, whom he named Adele. He also said he engaged in sexual acts with the doll but denied having sexual interest in children, court papers state. Rocha said he stopped his sexual activity when realizing the doll looked childlike, according to court documents.
In December 2022, the Air Force appeals court overturned Rocha’s dismissal on due process grounds. The justices found Rocha did not have fair notice that performing sexual acts with an inanimate object, alone and in a private setting, was criminal under military law.
The armed forces court of appeals, however, reversed the decision. Rocha did have fair notice, the court said, given that service members of “ordinary intelligence” should recognize conduct with parallels to child sexual abuse material is criminal under military law.
But the court sent the case back to the Air Force appeals court a second time, to address another of Rocha’s claim, that private sex acts with a doll are constitutionally protected conduct.
The Air Force appeals court agreed. In January 2025, justices found Rocha had a “constitutionally protected liberty interest to privately engage in sexual activities with his doll,” according to court papers.
Even “considering potential discredit to the service, we have found that (Rocha’s) conduct—masturbation, in solitude, in secret, and in private—should warrant” the constitutional protection afforded by the Supreme Court’s decision in Lawrence v. Texas. That landmark decision struck down a Texas law criminalizing sodomy between consenting adults.
Ohlson, in his dissent, emphasized his support for the legal precedents that uphold for both civilian and military members of the armed forces “the expansive and robust right to privacy when it comes to sexual activity among consenting adults.”
But, he said, “no federal court has ever held that Lawrence creates a constitutional right for a person to penetrate a child sex doll.”
The doll, he noted, did not have the appearance “of some blow-up gag gift from a novelty shop,” he wrote in his opinion.
“It was made of silicone, mimicking skin, and was obtained from a website which ‘specializes in anatomically correct dolls.’” Rocha told “investigators that he talked to this doll, showered with it, put baby powder on it, brushed its hair, slept with it, and gave it the name of a real girl he knew in middle school,” Ohlson stated.
