Word: galley
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Shot in Ditch. The attack started just before 8 a.m. The report states that Galley's 1st Platoon moved through My Lai killing Vietnamese. "Most of the inhabitants who were not killed immediately were rounded up into two groups. The first group, consisting of about 70-80 Vietnamese, was taken to a large ditch east of My Lai and later shot. A second group, consisting of 20-50 Vietnamese, was taken south of the hamlet and shot there on a trail...
...Peers investigation implicated more than 30 men in the My Lai massacre and its coverup. Many were never even charged. Twelve had the charges against them dismissed and three were acquitted after being court-martialed. Only Galley served time...
...Enemies of U.S. policy seized upon the event to dramatize their case. The Army, anxious to protect its name, sought to isolate the tragedy and its participants as untypical of military performance. Yet beneath the cloud of symbolism and larger issues, there remain the essential legal questions: Was William Galley indeed guilty as charged? Did the circumstances permit a panel of his fellow officers to judge his case fairly...
...sight and hearing will have failed to learn at least something about them. Does the requirement for a fair trial mean then that all such cases must be dismissed? Surely not. Or that an impartial jury can be found only among the exceptionally oblivious? If so, then presumably Galley or the Watergate defendants could only be tried by twelve idiot cousins of Gomer Pyle. Says Columbia Law School Professor Abraham Sofaer: "No one has the right to get away with a crime that is so notorious everybody knows about...
...Galley trial as in the Water gate trials, publicity alone does not seem compelling reason to abort the jury sys tem. By reductio ad absurdum, that would establish a principle that fame, not the truth, shall make you free. All a defendant's constitutional guarantees remain, but the basis of the jury system is still a faith that in the end, jurors are rationally capable of rendering judgment, as if they were kicking Dr. Johnson's rock. ∙Lance Morrow