Unearthed in a Pentagon file: a reminder of harsher times in military justice

[thedrifter]

Unearthed in a Pentagon file: a reminder of harsher times in military justice




By Robert Burns
ASSOCIATED PRESS
10:40 p.m. December 11, 2003

WASHINGTON ? On moving day in Cheryl Irwin's Pentagon office, she chanced upon an artifact of American military history that had been tucked away for decades in a nondescript cabinet.

"The first thing I saw was that it was handwritten," she said.

Next she noticed the title: "Executed Death Cases Before 1951."

The document is a ledger with nearly 200 names of U.S. military personnel ? plus seven German prisoners of war ? who were convicted of crimes punishable by death, and in most cases executed.

Some are listed only by last name. Case number 315055 was "Norman," whose rank is listed as corporal, convicted of violating Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (disobeying an order or regulation) while in the "West Pacific" in January 1947. Nothing more specific is mentioned about his offense, but the result is clear. He was sentenced to death, and the final entry behind his name, in the "remarks" column, is "Executed (hanged)."

Another, Pvt. Boston, was executed Aug. 1, 1945. "To be shot," says a handwritten notation.

The fact that these executions occurred is not a revelation, but it is a reminder that death sentences for offenses by military members are rare today. There are seven men on the military's death row today, and no one has been put to death in the military since 1961.

The ledger is not marked "secret." Still, it stands out in today's largely paperless Pentagon bureaucracy as a symbol of a harsher time.

Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, 15 offenses are punishable by death. Many of the 15, including desertion and disobeying a superior officer's order, carry the death penalty only in time of war.

The ledger comes to light, purely by accident, as the Pentagon prepares to hold military trials for some of the accused terrorists held at a detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. President Bush has designated six prisoners who could be tried, and with one exception ? Australian David Hicks, accused of training with al-Qaeda terrorists ? each could get the death penalty if convicted.

Irwin unearthed the execution list Thursday while clearing out a file cabinet in the Pentagon's main public affairs office, which is moving to a newly renovated section of the building. When she grabbed an armful of old files to throw out, one document fell to the floor.

The neat, orderly list is partly handwritten, partly typed on seven sheets of slightly yellowed paper. It does not indicate who compiled the list or why, nor is it dated. It carries the handwritten title, "Executed Death Cases before 1951," although some were later.

Most were from 1944-45. The earliest was in 1942.

The latest case was Pvt. John A. Bennett, hanged April 13, 1961, after he was convicted of rape and attempted murder. He was the last member of the U.S. military to be executed.

Of the nearly 200 listed, many were hanged. Some were shot. In some cases, the means of execution is not mentioned.

Details of the crimes are not listed, although in one, "German rape case" is noted after the May 30, 1944, execution date.

The list includes one case that was the subject of a television movie, the desertion case of Pvt. Eddie Slovik. He is the only member of the American military executed for desertion since the Civil War.

Slovik was 24 when he was shot by a firing squad Jan. 31, 1945, and buried among the graves of other U.S. soldiers hanged for charges that included rape and murder. His execution, approved by then-Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, was kept secret by the Army until nine years later.

The Slovik entry on the execution list is case number 290498, and it says simply that he was shot, listing the date of the execution and the date of his trial (Nov. 11, 1944). In an apparent clerical error, he is listed as having violated Article 58 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. It actually was Article 85, the provision that says it is unlawful to desert.

After the 1974 movie, called "The Execution of Private Slovik," starring Martin Sheen, supporters of the Slovik family waged a campaign to clear his name, asserting he had been denied a fair trial.

The Pentagon reviewed the case and ruled in 1977 that the execution was justified.

The State Department and Army approved the exhumation of his remains from a cemetery in France after one of Slovik's sisters made a formal request. He was reburied in Detroit in July 1987.

Other cases on the execution list are seven POWs ? all Germans listed as having been hanged July 28, 1945, after being convicted of disobeying an order or regulation. No details are provided.


http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/...executions.html

Sempers,

Roger