Bowe Bergdahl was just arraigned in a military court - and could face life in prison

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Bergdahl was arraigned during a short hearing and deferred entering a plea. He did not decide whether he wanted to face a court-martial with a jury or one with just a judge and said little beyond answering "yes" and "no" to questions about whether he understood his rights and the court proceedings. During the hearing, Bergdahl wore an Army dress uniform with a dark blue jacket and pants and had closely cropped hair, according to the AP.

Bergdahl, 29, of Hailey, Idaho, walked off his post in eastern Afghanistan's Paktika province on June 30, 2009. He was released in late May 2014 as part of a prisoner swap, in exchange for five detainees in Guantanamo Bay.

The hearing is the first step in Bergdahl's prosecution before a general courts martial. For a time, it looked as if Bergdahl's case was just too ambiguous for the military to successfully prosecute in such a venue: In October, Bergdahl's legal team said that the military officer in charge of a preliminary hearing in the case recommended his case be concluded without jail time or a punitive discharge from the military.

The case was also considered inherently difficult to prosecute, partly because of the still murky nature of Bergdahl's intentions and state of mind in leaving in his base in Afghanistan, and because of the years between the alleged crimes and an actual court martial. "It would be challenging because of the time that's elapsed to piece together all the circumstances of him leaving the unit," Victor Hansen, a former JAG officer and professor at the New England School of Law, told Business Insider in June of 2014.

But Bergdahl's disappearance and the possibility that he might face light punishment had angered many in the military, who say his fellow soldiers took considerable risks to search for him. Earlier this month, the Army announced he would face the more serious general court-martial.

Bergdahl could now be facing steep legal consequences. If convicted at a general court-martial, Bergdahl could get life in prison on the misbehavior charge and up to five years for desertion.

Jonathan Drake/Reuters

U.S. Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl (2nd R) leaves the courthouse with his defense attorney, Lt. Col. Franklin Rosenblatt (L), after an arraignment hearing for his court-martial in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, on December 22, 2015.

Bergdahl was charged with desertion, a difficult-to-prove accusation that requires military prosecutors to prove that he left his base without intending to return. But he's also accused of "misbehavior before the enemy," a rarely-invoked charge in which prosecutors only have to prove that Bergdahl "endanger[ed] fellow soldiers when he 'left without authority; and wrongfully caused search and recovery operations,'"according to Military Times.

The charge of misbehavior before the enemy was used hundreds of times during World War II, but scholars say its use appears to have dwindled in conflicts since then. Legal databases and media accounts turn up only a few misbehavior cases since 2001, when fighting began in Afghanistan, followed by Iraq less than two years later. In contrast, statistics show the U.S. Army prosecuted about 1,900 desertion cases between 2001 and the end of 2014.

Bergdahl's case has drawn renewed attention as the topic of season 2 of the popular podcast "Serial," which premiered on December 10th and includes Begdahl's only post-captivity media interview. In the premiere episode, Bergdahl claimed that he intended to trigger a wide-scale manhunt in leaving his base, but then changed his mind and decided to walk to a forward operating base some 20 miles away from his outpost.

The judge in the case, Col. Christopher Fredrikson, scheduled a Jan. 12 pretrial hearing to discuss motions.