Insert Proverb Here

You know the one, about the wheels of justice griding slowly.

Regrettably, in this case, the wheels of Military Justice ground slowly, and not nearly finely enough.

Like a lot of cities, during World War II Seattle was the "host" to Prisoners of War. After Italy surrendered, the status of Italian PoWs was anomalous, to say the least, and they were allowed privileges that, in many cases, GIs stationed locally did not enjoy.

One night in 1944, a riot broke out and a young Italian PoW was lynched.

A group of Black GIs was framed, tried, and convicted. (Seattle Post-Ijntelligencer Article.)

...Leon Jaworski -- the Army's prosecutor in the case who would later make headlines as a special prosecutor in the Watergate scandal -- was treated to the comforts of the Olympic Hotel in downtown Seattle.

Jaworski had evidence that likely would have cleared Snow and the others. Instead, he sat on it, and the case was nearly forgotten until a book by Seattle author Jack Hamann proved that the black soldiers didn't lynch the Italian soldier -- something Army investigators knew during the largest and longest court-martial of World War II.

A local "documentary journalist" named Jack Hamann wrote a book, entitled On American Soil, which told the story. Last October United States Army Board for Correction of Military Records (ABCMR) ruled that the trial was "fundamentally unfair" and that the defendants in said trial should have their records expunged and all rights and privileges restored.

Assistant Secretary of the Army Ronald James will be traveling to Fort Lawton, in Seattle, this week to offically apologize.

I am sure the Army has no illusions that an apology at this late date makes any difference whatsoever. At this time, only two of the original defendants are still alive; alas, Jaworski died in 1982, so they can't go after him.

Sometimes, apologizing is about all you can do, no matter how late; for what it's worth, the Army did investigate allegations into wrong-doing at Ft. Lawton before and after the lynching and subsequent kangaroo court martial. The whole affair, in fact, apparently had much to do with the eventual development of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which has stood with little change since it's adoption in the 1950s. In fact, under the UCMJ Military Personnel were notified of their right to counsel years before the Miranda Decision.