REQ: Why was Calley released early?

[Britboy]

Alright all,

Just wondering about My Lai.

Why was William Calley's sentence reduced from 20yrs to 10, then only to 3 and a half years of house arrest? Why did Nixon allow this leniency to such a war criminal?

Due to Medina's ambiguous orders? He was acquitted in court of this so that doesn't make sense for me...

Did any of his subordinates within the platoon ever get punished either?

Glad to see the helo crew who finally put an end to it (Thompson & Colborne got recognised at least.

Just seems odd to have such a guys sentence reduced then wiped away, esp when the SecDef was supposedly against this. If we could keep this discussion civil, thatd be grand.

Cheers
BB

[martinexsquaddie]

everybody else got off so he was seen as a fall guy.
Something had gone seriously wrong if shooting everybody was seen as acceptable orders

[Britboy]

I thought he had gone wrong...
Apparently his OC was a respected bloke, theres some controversy over the exact wording of the orders tho...

[Britboy]

Bump.

Any of our American friends know why Nixon was willing to get Calley to only have to do 3yrs house arrest?

[LineDoggie]

Calley was originally found Guilty March 29th, 1971 on 22 counts of Premeditated Murder. His Sentence was Life Imprisonment at Hard Labor (back then, real Rock Breaking).

While awaiting standard appeal he was put under house arrest at Bennings BOQ. His Conviction was upheld by the post commander on August 20th, 1971, but the commander reduced the sentence to 20 years.

The Army's Court of Military Review later upheld that conviction and sentence

The Secretary of the Army in a clemency action further reduced it to 10 years. Calley served 3.5 years under house arrest until he petitioned a federal Judge for Habeas Corpus on Feb. 11th, 1974.

On September 25th, 1974 the judge granted it. The judge decided that Calley's Trial was prejudiced by pre-trial publicity, inadequate notice of charges, Denial of defence witness supeonas, and Congress's refusal in it's executive session to release testimony of it's My Lai investigation.

The Army did appeal the judges decision to the 5th Circuit but while the court returned the original conviction, and custody, noted Calley had been "Paroled from Army Confinement"

http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F2/519/519.F2d.184.74-3471.html

This link is lengthy, but is the court document you want to peruse

[Britboy]

LD, cheers for that! Guess that goes to show I need to do my research a little better - will have a looksee into that doc...

The HC law is an interesting one. Seems the authorities shot themselves in the foot with this one more than a little - I can't see how a whole massacre only justifies 3 and a half years house arrest, I mean blokes like Galileo got longer and worse than that for trying to advance science back in the day, never mind a massacre... But thats the 'rule of law' and technicalities I suppose, perhaps poor media handling pre-trial was to blame.

Like I said, will have a looksee - cheers!


Calley was originally found Guilty March 29th, 1971 on 22 counts of Premeditated Murder. His Sentence was Life Imprisonment at Hard Labor (back then, real Rock Breaking).

While awaiting standard appeal he was put under house arrest at Bennings BOQ. His Conviction was upheld by the post commander on August 20th, 1971, but the commander reduced the sentence to 20 years.

The Army's Court of Military Review later upheld that conviction and sentence

The Secretary of the Army in a clemency action further reduced it to 10 years. Calley served 3.5 years under house arrest until he petitioned a federal Judge for Habeas Corpus on Feb. 11th, 1974.

On September 25th, 1974 the judge granted it. The judge decided that Calley's Trial was prejudiced by pre-trial publicity, inadequate notice of charges, Denial of defence witness supeonas, and Congress's refusal in it's executive session to release testimony of it's My Lai investigation.

The Army did appeal the judges decision to the 5th Circuit but while the court returned the original conviction, and custody, noted Calley had been "Paroled from Army Confinement"

http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F2/519/519.F2d.184.74-3471.html

This link is lengthy, but is the court document you want to peruse

[Chalkblock]

After deliberating for 79 hours and 57 minutes, the jury returned a verdict. They had found Calley guilty of premeditated murder of 22 of the villagers of My Lai. One juror claimed that they “had labored long and hard to find some way, some evidence, or some flaw in the testimony so we could find Lt. Calley innocent.” Before the jury reconvened to decide his punishment, Calley was allowed to address the jury and said, “Yesterday you stripped me of all my honor, please by your actions that you take here today, don’t strip future soldiers of their honor-I beg you.” The prosecution responded that Calley had stripped himself of his honor by murdering women and children. After seven hours the jury sentenced Calley to life of hard labor. In the end, he only served days in a Fort Benning stockade before being placed under house arrest. His sentence was repeatedly reduced. Finally, his sentence was commuted to time served by President Nixon. He was paroled in November, 1974. Orders from Hiher or not he could of not followed them as they were not a legal order. He and his men did it to get pay back for lost commandes.

[Britboy]

It seems a ridiculously lenient punishment for one of the worst war crimes post-1945, at least in the Western world.

I'd have thought it'd have been the other way round, be especially harsh on him to make the deter others and make the point that we are really not into this sort of thing.

Leniency and clemency, whilst it must have fitted with the letter of the law, does not seem to fit what Calley did that day.

[Laconian]

Brit, I studied My Lai from a leadership standpoint at USMA, and the Infantry Officer Basic Course, but that was a long time ago. A lot of the problems experienced in his unit seemed to stem from the fact that the unit was created in theater. Although, Calley was the main figure tried, the Army's investigation found numerous breakdowns in the entire chain, not the least of which was the realization that Cally probably should never have graduated OCS. One of the commanders was at West Point as the Commandant and relieved, IIRC.

I think the nation and the Army just wanted it all to go away.

[Chalkblock]

The following is taken from Wikipedia

Calley did not command nearly so much respect from his subordinates or superiors in the military. Very few of the people who worked with him on a regular basis liked him. Captain Medina would often address him as “Lieutenant ****head” in front of his men and rebuff him when addressed by him with a sarcastic, “Listen Sweetheart...” This had an obvious discrediting effect with his soldiers. The opinion of him in his platoon was “universally hostile.” One GI described him as “a glory-hungry person...the kind of person who would have sacrificed all of us for his own personal advancement.” Others called him “nervous, excitable type who yelled a lot” and “incompetent.” Another GI said of Calley, there was “something about him that rubbed people the wrong way.” It was even said that “Calley was so disliked by members of the unit that they put a bounty on his head. None of the men had any respect for him as a military leader.”
Calley’s military career began with basic training, after which he was transferred to Fort Lewis, Washington where he trained as a clerk-typist. He then successfully applied to Officer Candidacy School and began six months of junior officer training in the middle of March, 1967. Training was accelerated in the summer when the battalion was to be deployed earlier than had been expected. Upon arrival in Vietnam, Calley's Charlie Company did not encounter much action. Calley spent much of his time trying to keep his men from playing with and giving candy to the Vietnamese children. He said he was afraid of the Vietnamese children and that he hated them.
During his trial, Calley got so much mail from the public that he spent $35 on an automatic letter opener. When court was not in session, he spent his time with John Sack who conducted long tape recorded interviews with Calley for a book to be written in Calley’s name. To protect Calley from too many media questions, Sack would fill the five court room chairs that had been allocated the defendant with “pretty young women” who were often invited back to his apartment for coffee. During the trial Calley underwent numerous psychological exams which all revealed that he was “normal” and did not suffer from and psychological disease that would account for his behavior. Although not revealed under oath, some of his doctors claimed that he told them that he thought of killing the Vietnamese people in the same way he thought of killing animals.

[Chalkblock]

The following is something I found on Capt. Ernest Medina

After leaving the army, Medina acknowledged that he had known what was happening at My Lai and that he had “not been completely candid to avoid disgracing the military, the United States, his family, and himself.”


So why was he not charges brought back up for lieing to the Court-Marshall????