Word: elliott
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...case went up the line of military justice, the reviewing authorities answered yes to those questions again and again, though the original life sentence was reduced to ten years. Galley's lawyers then turned to civilian courts. Last week in Columbus, Ga., Federal District Court Judge J. Robert Elliott ruled that Calley had indeed been convicted unjustly...
...long (132 pages), complex and somewhat eccentric opinion, Elliott concluded: "His country not only denied him a fair trial-it even denied him a fair chance for a fair trial." He held that Galley had been deprived of due process on four counts. The charges against him had been improperly drawn because "the prosecution did not identify any individual as being one that the petitioner killed or ordered to be killed...
...defense should have been permitted to call such higher-ups as then Defense Secretary Melvin Laird to bolster the argument that undue command influence had affected the trial. And the defense should have been given access to a confidential House Armed Services Committee report on My Lai. Judge Elliott cited Watergate and ruled that "the Supreme Court in deciding the Nixon [tapes] case also decided the Calley case...
...Elliott reserved his most withering prose, however, for what he apparently considered the largest issue-publicity...
Vulnerable Opinion. Many legal experts were initially skeptical of much of Elliott's reasoning, and agreed with a Justice Department official's assessment that "the opinion appears vulnerable on most of its points." Elliott's conclusions about publicity were the most controversial. For one thing, members of the court-martial panel were not likely to read or hear anything substantive outside the courtroom that was not presented in exceptionally grim detail by prosecution witnesses...