Death of a Dubious Report

On a solemn morning in Ravenna, Ohio, last week, a small group of onlookers and newsmen gathered behind the Portage County courthouse to watch Mrs. Lucy DeLeone, clerk of the courts, put the match to one of the most controversial documents in recent U.S. history. She burned an 18-page document released by a special Ohio grand jury last year that absolved the National Guard of any responsibility in the slaying of four Kent State students. The grand jury indicted 24 youths and one professor on state riot charges.

U.S. District Judge William K. Thomas found the jury's report so blatantly biased that he ordered those conclusions exonerating the Guardsmen and condemning the university officials expunged from the record. Finally the court ordered the entire document destroyed. Still, the indictments are not legally bound to the jury's report. So the irony is that even though the report has been invalidated, the trials are to begin this week because the U.S. Supreme Court has refused to stay them.

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