Word: verdict
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Manstein was the last of the defendants in the war-crimes trials of World War II. When his British judges handed down their verdict this week, the Allies closed their case against the enemy leaders whom, in the name of all mankind, they had arraigned for crimes against humanity...
This week in a hushed courtroom packed with German spectators, many of them with the stiff, erect bearing of former Wehrmacht officers, Manstein heard the verdict. He was found guilty on nine counts concerning execution and maltreatment of Russian soldiers and civilians; he was cleared of eight other counts, notably concerning the extermination of Jews. Then the court pronounced sentence: 18 years in prison. For 62-year-old Field Marshal Fritz Erich von Manstein, it was probably a life term...
Then the jurors-all twelve of them women-retired. They were back, after less than two hours of deliberation, with a verdict that stunned the court: not guilty...
Judge Sloane, white-faced, turned on the jury: "Ladies of the jury," he said, "I tremble at what you did. One of the great bulwarks of our country is the jury system. Every little blot on that system -and this verdict is a blot on it-if continued and added to will gather into a great darkness. I dismiss you with a censure of this miscarriage of justice...
Vice Consul William N. Stokes and forced him to watch the trial of ten Japanese, Chinese and Koreans accused of "spying" for the U.S. No Americans were on trial, but that did not bother the people's court. Its verdict: the entire staff of the U.S. consulate would be deported along with Angus Ward...