Calley Loses

With a scathing denunciation of "massive adverse pretrial publicity," Federal Judge J. Robert Elliott last September threw out Army Lieut. William Calley's conviction for his part in the 1968 My Lai massacre. Last week 13 judges of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously rejected Elliott's conclusion about news coverage. Otherwise, wrote Judge Robert A. Ainsworth Jr., "the inevitable results would be that truly heinous or notorious acts would go unpunished." Besides, he added, the members of the Calley court-martial panel were scrupulously examined for their ability to be fair and open-minded. Five appeals judges believed Calley was unconstitutionally denied access to the findings of a congressional My Lai investigation, but an eight-man majority felt that his defense was not really hurt and reinstated his conviction. The case, with its important publicity v. fair-trial question, will now be appealed to the Supreme Court, but for Calley himself, working as a construction worker in Columbus, Ga., the outcome will have no practical significance. After serving 39 months of a ten-year sentence (reduced from life), he was released last November after the Elliott ruling; but even if his conviction is finally upheld, the Army has already okayed his parole.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.