DOCSLIB.ORG

Closing Keynote Address

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Closing Keynote Address CLOSING KEYNOTE ADDRESS THE MIRANDA CASE FIFTY YEARS LATER ∗ YALE KAMISAR I. A LOOK BACK AT MIRANDA ............................................................. 1293 II. THE THREE DISSENTS IN MIRANDA ................................................... 1296 III. WHAT IS WRONG IF THE POLICE ASK ONE OR TWO QUESTIONS? .... 1298 IV. THE ROLE OF TELFORD TAYLOR ...................................................... 1299 V. THE LIMITED ROLE OF THE LAWYER ................................................ 1299 VI. THE “COMPROMISE” STRUCK IN MIRANDA ....................................... 1299 VII. SHOULD THERE BE MORE WARNINGS? ............................................ 1300 VIII. ONE REASON FOR SAYING THAT MIRANDA HAS FAILED .................. 1300 IX. WHAT THOSE WHO STUDY HOW THE WARNINGS ARE DELIVERED TELL US ........................................................................ 1301 X. SALINAS V. TEXAS ............................................................................... 1302 I. A LOOK BACK AT MIRANDA A decade after the Supreme Court decided Miranda v. Arizona,1 Geoffrey Stone took a close look at the eleven decisions the Court had handed down “concerning the scope and application of Miranda.”2 As Stone observed, “[i]n ten of these cases, the Court interpreted Miranda so as not to exclude the challenged evidence.”3 In the eleventh case, the Court excluded the evidence on other grounds.4 Thus, Stone noted, ten years after the Court decided the case, “the Court ha[d] not held a single item of evidence inadmissible on the authority of Miranda.”5 Not a single item. To use baseball terminology, in Miranda’s first eleven “at bats,” it went zero for eleven. ∗ Clarence Darrow Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Law, University of Michigan School of Law; Professor Emeritus of Law, University of San Diego School of Law. 1 384 U.S. 436 (1966). 2 Geoffrey R. Stone, The Miranda Doctrine in the Burger Court, 1977 SUP. CT. REV. 99, 100; see also United States v. Washington, 431 U.S. 181 (1977); United States v. Wong, 431 U.S. 174 (1977); Oregon v. Mathiason, 429 U.S. 492 (1977) (per curiam); Doyle v. Ohio, 426 U.S. 610 (1976); United States v. Mandujano, 425 U.S. 564 (1976); Beckwith v. United States, 425 U.S. 341 (1976); Baxter v. Palmigiano, 425 U.S. 308 (1976); Michigan v. Mosley, 423 U.S. 96 (1975); Oregon v. Hass, 420 U.S. 714 (1975); Michigan v. Tucker, 417 U.S. 433 (1974); Harris v. New York, 401 U.S. 222 (1971). 3 Stone, supra note 2, at 100. 4 Id. (citing Doyle, 426 U.S. at 619). 5 Id. at 100-01. I agree with Frank Allen, who stated that: 1293 1294 BOSTON UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW [Vol. 97:1293 For those of us who welcomed Miranda, this turned out to be deeply disappointing. But it would not have come as much of a surprise to those who remember the four Justices President Nixon appointed to the Supreme Court during his first term of office: Chief Justice Burger, Justice Blackmun, Justice Powell, and Justice Rehnquist.6 Before being appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, then-Judge Burger of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit left no doubt, both in his dissenting opinions7 and in public speeches,8 that he was extremely unhappy with the Warren Court’s criminal procedure cases.9 Chief Justice Burger may have been the most police-friendly Supreme Court Justice of all time—only with the possible exception of another Nixon appointee, William Rehnquist.10 In fact, shortly after Rehnquist became Assistant Attorney [S]urely the most fundamental reasons for the [Warren] Court’s loss of impetus lies in the social and political context of the Court in the late 1960’s. That period was a time of social upheaval, violence in the ghettos, and disorder on the campuses. Fears of the breakdown of public order were widespread. Inevitably, the issue of law and order were [sic] politically exploited. In the presidential campaign of 1968 the bewildering problems of crime in the United States were represented simply as a war between the “peace forces” and the “criminal forces.” The decision in Miranda evoked a chorus of criticism of the Court, ranging from the excited to the psychotic. Congress responded with the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, some provisions of which were obviously retaliatory. These events combined to create an atmosphere that, to say the least, was unfavorable to the continued vitality of the Warren Court’s mission in criminal cases. Francis A. Allen, The Judicial Quest for Penal Justice: The Warren Court and the Criminal Cases, 1975 U. ILL. L.F. 518, 538-39 (footnotes omitted). 6 See Stone, supra note 2, at 99 n.2; see also Yale Kamisar, The Rise, Decline, and Fall (?) of Miranda, 87 WASH. L. REV. 965, 974-91 (2012). 7 See, e.g., Frazier v. United States, 419 F.2d 1161, 1176 (D.C. Cir. 1969) (Burger, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (“We are well on our way to forbidding any utterance of an accused to be used against him unless it is made in open court. Guilt or innocence becomes irrelevant in the criminal trial as we flounder in a morass of artificial rules poorly conceived and often impossible of application.”); Borum v. United States, 380 F.2d 595, 602 (D.C. Cir. 1967) (Burger, J., dissenting) (“I suggest that the kind of nit-picking appellate review exhibited by reversal of this conviction may help explain why the public is losing confidence in the administration of justice. I suggest also that if we continue on this course we may well come to be known as a society incapable of defending itself—the impotent society.”). 8 See, e.g., Warren E. Burger, Who Will Watch the Watchmen?, 14 AM. U. L. REV. 1, 23 (1964) (“We can all ponder whether any community is entitled to call itself an ‘organized society’ if it can find no way to solve this problem except by suppression of truth in the search for truth.”). 9 See Kamisar, supra note 6, at 976-98 (chronicling then-Judge Burger’s contempt for the Warren Court’s criminal procedure jurisprudence, and describing how his views caught the attention of President Nixon). 10 See id. at 980-91 (describing the prominent roles Chief Justice Burger and Chief Justice Rehnquist played in “the downsizing and dismantling of Miranda”). 2017] THE MIRANDA CASE FIFTY YEARS LATER 1295 General in charge of the Office of Legal Counsel, he urged the President to appoint a commission to consider whether such cases as Miranda needed to be corrected by a constitutional amendment.11 As for Justice Blackmun and Justice Powell, neither one’s appointment to the Court should have come as much of a surprise either. Chief Justice Burger had recommended then-Judge Blackmun, a close friend since their childhood days, to President Nixon for a nomination to the Court.12 It was widely assumed that Justice Blackmun would follow the new Chief Justice’s lead.13 As for Justice Powell, when the National Crime Commission issued its report in 1967, the future Justice turned out to be one of seven members of the Commission to sign a supplemental statement underscoring the need to return to the pre-Miranda “voluntariness” test14—even “[i]f, as now appears likely, a constitutional amendment is required.”15 In retrospect, I think it is fair to say that Miranda never recovered from Nixon’s four Supreme Court appointments.16 11 Memorandum from William H. Rehnquist, Assistant Att’y Gen., Office of Legal Counsel, to John W. Dean III, Assoc. Deputy Att’y Gen. (Apr. 1, 1969). 12 See LINDA GREENHOUSE, BECOMING JUSTICE BLACKMUN 9-46 (2005). 13 See JOHN D. EHRLICHMAN, WITNESS TO POWER: THE NIXON YEARS 129 (1982) (noting that Justice Blackmun “could be expected to follow closely the new Chief Justice’s lead”). Indeed, in his first five years on the Court, Justice Blackmun voted with Justice Burger in over eighty-five percent of the closely divided cases. GREENHOUSE, supra note 12, at 186. In the next ten years, however, Justice Blackmun voted more often with Justice Brennan than with the Chief Justice. Id. (“By the next five-year period, 1975 to 1980, Blackmun was joining Brennan in 54.5 percent of the divided cases and Burger in 45.5 percent. During the final five years that he and Burger served together, he joined Brennan in 70.6% of the close cases and Burger in only 32.4 percent.”). 14 PRESIDENT’S COMM’N ON LAW ENF’T & ADMIN. OF JUSTICE, THE CHALLENGE OF CRIME IN A FREE SOCIETY 303 (1967), https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/42.pdf [https://perma.cc/FUT4-UC2N]. 15 Id. at 308. The supplemental statement also emphasized the need to allow “for comment on the failure of [a defendant] to take the stand” in his or her own defense. Id. 16 I should recognize, however, that some thoughtful commentators have reached very different conclusions than I have regarding the impact of President Nixon’s four appointments. See, e.g., JOHN C. JEFFRIES, JR., JUSTICE LEWIS F. POWELL, JR. 398 (1994) (“With the appointments of Burger and Blackmun and the later addition of Powell and Rehnquist, the conservatives had a decisive majority on most questions of criminals’ rights. But to the distress of some and the relief of others, there was no sudden about-face. The conservative majority generally accepted the achievements of the Warren Court—but refined them, constrained them, and reduced their scope. The result was a new synthesis, based partly on the insights and innovations of the Warren Court and partly on the doubts and objections of its critics.”). 1296 BOSTON UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW [Vol. 97:1293 II. THE THREE DISSENTS IN MIRANDA Returning to the case itself, four Justices wrote three separate dissenting opinions in Miranda.17 In one way or another, each dissent assumed that Miranda would be a criminal justice disaster—that very few suspects, if any, would waive their rights.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Nuremberg and Beyond: Jacob Robinson, International Lawyer
    Loyola of Los Angeles International and Comparative Law Review Volume 39 Number 1 Special Edition: The Nuremberg Laws Article 12 and the Nuremberg Trials Winter 2017 Nuremberg and Beyond: Jacob Robinson, International Lawyer Jonathan Bush Columbia University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/ilr Recommended Citation Jonathan Bush, Nuremberg and Beyond: Jacob Robinson, International Lawyer, 39 Loy. L.A. Int'l & Comp. L. Rev. 259 (2017). Available at: https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/ilr/vol39/iss1/12 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Reviews at Digital Commons @ Loyola Marymount University and Loyola Law School. It has been accepted for inclusion in Loyola of Los Angeles International and Comparative Law Review by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons@Loyola Marymount University and Loyola Law School. For more information, please contact [email protected]. BUSH MACRO FINAL*.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 1/24/17 7:22 PM Nuremberg and Beyond: Jacob Robinson, International Lawyer JONATHAN A. BUSH* Jacob Robinson (1889–1977) was one of the half dozen leading le- gal intellectuals associated with the Nuremberg trials. He was also argu- ably the only scholar-activist who was involved in almost every interna- tional criminal law and human rights battle in the two decades before and after 1945. So there is good reason for a Nuremberg symposium to include a look at his remarkable career in international law and human rights. This essay will attempt to offer that, after a prefatory word about the recent and curious turn in Nuremberg scholarship to biography, in- cluding of Robinson.
    [Show full text]
  • BOOK REVIEW: Telford Taylor: Courts of Terror Paul Sherman
    Brooklyn Journal of International Law Volume 3 | Issue 1 Article 6 1976 BOOK REVIEW: Telford Taylor: Courts of Terror Paul Sherman Follow this and additional works at: https://brooklynworks.brooklaw.edu/bjil Recommended Citation Paul Sherman, BOOK REVIEW: Telford Taylor: Courts of Terror, 3 Brook. J. Int'l L. (1976). Available at: https://brooklynworks.brooklaw.edu/bjil/vol3/iss1/6 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Journals at BrooklynWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Brooklyn Journal of International Law by an authorized editor of BrooklynWorks. BOOK REVIEW Courts of Terror. TELFORD TAYLOR. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1976. Pp. xi, 184. $6.95. New York: Vintage Books (Random House), 1976. Pp. xi, 184. $1.65 (pap.). Reviewed by Paul Sherman* In Courts of Terror, Professor Telford Taylor has produced a work of advocacy with a two-fold purpose: to create "an account of the prostitution of Soviet justice to serve State ends,"' and to publicize this failure of justice in order to "aid or comfort the victims of these abuses, and their friends and relatives."' He achieves the first goal, in large part, by describing his efforts and those of a number of attorneys and law professors to secure the release of twenty-three prisoners in the Soviet Union. In so doing, he describes the unusual procedures and occasionally extraordi- nary application of criminal provisions under which these prison- ers were convicted. Whether publication of this work will achieve his second goal is a subjective judgment, but as he notes in Chap- ter 10, disclosure may serve to "systematize the spreading of in- formation about these cases" and continue whatever momentum 3 has been achieved.
    [Show full text]
  • Nazi Medicine and the Nuremberg Trials Also by Paul Julian Weindling
    Nazi Medicine and the Nuremberg Trials Also by Paul Julian Weindling HEALTH, RACE AND GERMAN POLITICS BETWEEN NATIONAL UNIFICATION AND NAZISM, 1870–1945 EPIDEMICS AND GENOCIDE IN EASTERN EUROPE, 1890–1945 Nazi Medicine and the Nuremberg Trials From Medical War Crimes to Informed Consent Paul Julian Weindling © Paul Julian Weindling 2004 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2004 978-1-4039-3911-1 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2004 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 978-0-230-50700-5 ISBN 978-0-230-50605-3 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9780230506053 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources.
    [Show full text]
  • Tribute to Nuremberg Prosecutor Jackson
    Pace International Law Review Volume 16 Issue 2 Fall 2004 Article 5 September 2004 Tribute to Nuremberg Prosecutor Jackson Benjamin B. Ferencz Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.pace.edu/pilr Recommended Citation Benjamin B. Ferencz, Tribute to Nuremberg Prosecutor Jackson , 16 Pace Int'l L. Rev. 365 (2004) Available at: https://digitalcommons.pace.edu/pilr/vol16/iss2/5 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the School of Law at DigitalCommons@Pace. It has been accepted for inclusion in Pace International Law Review by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@Pace. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ESSAY TRIBUTE TO NUREMBERG PROSECUTOR JACKSON Benjamin B. Ferencz* I. Jackson's Vision of Peace Through Law ........... 365 II. Implementing Jackson's Dream ................... 369 III. A New International Criminal Court is Born ...... 371 IV. Where is Jackson's Dream Today? ... ............. 374 V . References ......................................... 375 I. JACKSON'S VISION OF PEACE THROUGH LAW The highest compliment we can render to the memory of Justice Robert H. Jackson, as we approach the 60th anniver- sary of the Nuremberg trials is to try to build on the principles of law that he espoused. In his oft-cited opening statement at Nuremberg, Jackson hailed the trial against the Nazi leaders as "one of the most significant tributes that Power has ever paid to Reason." His primary aspiration was to use the law as an in- strumentality to curb aggression - "the supreme international crime." If war-making itself could be diminished or eliminated, that would surely be the greatest tribute man could pay to human reason.
    [Show full text]
  • In 1945, General Eisenhower Invited Congress and Journalists to Bear
    BUILD UP TO WWII NOTHING IS COVERED UP: GLOBAL UNDERSTANDING COMMUNICATING THE HORRORS Eisenhower understood the importance of communicating the evidence of the Adolf Hitler’s promise to restore Germany to glory during the OF THE HOLOCAUST horrors of the camps to the world to avoid denial of the war crimes. Eye post WWI depression provided a platform for his fascist agenda. witness accounts, images and films taken during the Liberation were sent In 1933 he was appointed Chancellor and utilized propaganda to to global media outlets to ensure the world understood the true nature of promote Anti Semitism and Aryanism. World War II officially the Holocaust. began with the German invasion of Poland in September 1939. Adolf Hitler and German President “We are told the American soldier Paul von Hindenberg, shortly after Hindenburg asked Hitler to become does not know what he is fighting LIBERATION for. Now, at least, we know what chancellor.” 1933, Bild Bundesarchiv he is fighting against.” General Eisenhower “The best way to take control over a people and control them utterly is to take a little of their The Ohrdruf Concentration camp was the first camp to be freedom at a time, to erode rights by a thousand liberated by U.S troops, followed by Auschwitz, Ravensbrück, tiny and almost imperceptible reductions. In this Majdanek,Sobibor,and Treblinka among others from 1944-1945. way, the people will not see those rights and “German soldiers parade through Warsaw to After each liberation of the camps the allied soldiers along freedoms being removed until past the point at celebrate the conquest of Poland”.
    [Show full text]
  • International Military Tribunals' Genesis, WWII Experience, And
    Utah Law Review Volume 2017 | Number 4 Article 5 8-2017 International Military Tribunals’ Genesis, WWII Experience, and Future Relevance Henry Korn Follow this and additional works at: http://dc.law.utah.edu/ulr Part of the International Law Commons, Law and Society Commons, Legal History Commons, and the Military, War, and Peace Commons Recommended Citation Korn, Henry (2017) "International Military Tribunals’ Genesis, WWII Experience, and Future Relevance," Utah Law Review: Vol. 2017 : No. 4 , Article 5. Available at: http://dc.law.utah.edu/ulr/vol2017/iss4/5 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Utah Law Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Utah Law Review by an authorized editor of Utah Law Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INTERNATIONAL MILITARY TRIBUNALS’ GENESIS, WWII EXPERIENCE, AND FUTURE RELEVANCE Henry Korn* I. INTRODUCTION It is generally known that during World War II (“WWII”), the Allies agreed that following the war, Nazi leaders would face charges of violating international law for the conduct of the war and the extermination of innocent people based on their religious beliefs, and they would face the prospect of death by a military tribunal hearing the evidence. What is not generally known is that the Allies had no precedent for creating an international tribunal and defining anew the very war crimes they would face—an approach that some considered to be ex post facto laws. The International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg was the first time government officials, military leaders, and citizens of a defeated nation were tried under principles of international law in tribunals jointly established by victor nations to hear and sentence the defendants involving crimes that did not appear in any national body of penal laws.1 This Article discusses precedent, offers personal insights into the proceedings, and suggests the future holds a limited role for such proceedings.
    [Show full text]
  • Capitalism's Victor's Justice?
    8 Capitalism’s Victor’s Justice? Th e Hidden Stories Behind the Prosecution of Industrialists Post-WWII Grietje Baars * (I) Introduction It is well known that in the ‘subsequent trials’ held in Nuremberg by the US mili- tary, the directors of three of Germany’s largest industrial combines (and one bank) were prosecuted for their roles in the Nazis’ aggressive wars and the Holocaust. What has remained largely hidden is how the rapidly changing geopolitical land- scape infl uenced the decision to try industrialists for their war responsibility, the articulation of the ‘economic case’ at the International Military Tribunal (IMT), the conduct of the industrialists’ trials at the US Military Tribunals at Nuremberg (NMT) and eventually the early release and rehabilitation of the convicted busi- ness leaders. Th e US and USSR had at one point both understood World War II (WWII) as a war of economic imperialism in which industrialists had played a key role—both in planning and waging. With the commencement of the Cold War this idea became a point of sharp ideological divide. Th e economic story of WWII gradually moved over to ‘hidden history’ in the West, while remaining visible only in the German Democratic Republic and Soviet discourse. Likewise, the omission of zaibatsu leaders from the Tokyo International Tribunal hid the Allies’ expressed conviction that also the war on the Eastern front had been one of economic imperialism. Over time, the way international confl ict is conceptualized and explained in mainstream Western (legal) discourse has changed, as has the role that international criminal law (ICL) is accorded in world politics, and whose * Drs (Utrecht), LLM (UCL), PhD (UCL), Lecturer (City University London, UK).
    [Show full text]
  • Sheehan Rev, War Crimes NYTBR
    Should We Have War Crimes Trials? By Neil Sheehan The New York Times Book Review March 28, 1971, pp. BR1 ff. AGAINST THE CRIME OF SILENCE ECOCIDE IN INDOCHINA Edited by John Duffet. By Barry Weisberg. 672 pp. New York: Simon & Schuster- Illustrated. 241 pp. New York: Clarion. Paper, $3:95. Canfield Press-Harper & Row. Paper, $3.95. AIR WAR -- VIETNAM By Frank Harvey. EFFICIENCY IN DEATH 192 pp. New York Bantam. Sponsored by The Council Paper, 75 cents. On Economic Priorities. Illustrated. 233 pp. New York: ATROCITIES EN VIETNAM Harper & Row. Paper, $1.50. By Edward S. Herman. Illustrated. 104 pp. Philadelphia: IN THE NAME OF AMERICA Pilgrim Press. Paper, $1.95. Research Director, Seymour Melman. 421 pp. New York: Clergy & Laymen AT WAR WITH ASIA Concerned About Vietnam, Room 547, By Noam Chomsky. 475 Riverside Drive, New York 10027. 314 pp. Now York: Pantheon. Cloth, $4.95. Paper, $2.95. Cloth, $7.95. Vintage. Paper, $1.95 THE INDOCHINA STORY CASUALTIES OF WAR By The Committee of Concerned By Daniel Lang. Asian Scholars. 123 pp. New York: McGraw-Hill. 348 pp. Now York: Pantheon. Cloth, $4.50. Paper, $1.50. Cloth, $8.95. Bantam. Paper, $1.25. CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL MILITARISM, U.SA. WARFARE By Col. James A. Donovan. Hearings of the US. Senate 265 pp. New York: Charles Scribner‘s Committee on Foreign Relations. Sons. Cloth, $6.95. Paper, $2.95. Free from the Committee, U.S. Senate Office Building. THE MILITARY HALF Washington. By Jonathan Schell. 224 pp. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL Cloth, $4.95.
    [Show full text]
  • An Absence of Accountability for the My Lai Massacre Jeannine Davanzo
    Hofstra Law & Policy Symposium Volume 3 Article 18 1-1-1997 An Absence of Accountability for the My Lai Massacre Jeannine Davanzo Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarlycommons.law.hofstra.edu/hlps Part of the Military, War, and Peace Commons Recommended Citation Davanzo, Jeannine (1997) "An Absence of Accountability for the My Lai Massacre," Hofstra Law & Policy Symposium: Vol. 3 , Article 18. Available at: https://scholarlycommons.law.hofstra.edu/hlps/vol3/iss1/18 This Note is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarly Commons at Hofstra Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in Hofstra Law & Policy Symposium by an authorized editor of Scholarly Commons at Hofstra Law. For more information, please contact [email protected]. NOTE AN ABSENCE OF ACCOUNTABILITY FOR THE MY LAI MASSACRE I. INTRODUCTION The legacy of My Lai leaves behind many unanswered ques- tions concerning accountability. For instance: Why in the aftermath of the massacre was there a failure to charge all those soldiers and high-ranking officials responsible for the carnage? Why was there a failure to convict those charged? Why were the sentences of the convicted not sustained? This article will discuss the breaking of the silence surrounding the massacre, the formal investigation led by Lieutenant General William R. Peers, the actual events that have become known as the "My Lai Massacre," the disposition of charges, the convictions, the apparent lack of United States accountability, the United States cover-up, as well as the United States government's disregard for the Nuremberg Principles. II. THE BEGINNING In the fall of 1969, war-weary America received a shock from the distant land of Vietnam.' On November 13, newspapers across the country printed accounts of a gruesome massacre that occurred eighteen months earlier in the Vietnamese hamlet of My Lai by the United States infantry unit known as "Charlie Company." The Charlie Company was a unit of the American Division's 11th Infan- try Brigade.
    [Show full text]
  • Answer Brief of the Prosecution in the Schellenberg Case Telford Taylor Chief of Counsel for War Crimes
    Digital Commons @ Georgia Law Trial 11 - Ministries Case Phillips Nuremberg Trials 11-15-1948 Answer Brief of the Prosecution in the Schellenberg Case Telford Taylor Chief of Counsel for War Crimes Repository Citation Taylor, Telford, "Answer Brief of the Prosecution in the Schellenberg Case" (1948). Trial 11 - Ministries Case. 19. https://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/nmt11/19 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Phillips Nuremberg Trials at Digital Commons @ Georgia Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in Trial 11 - Ministries Case by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Georgia Law. Please share how you have benefited from this access For more information, please contact [email protected]. 3 ILITARX TRIBUNAL IV CASE No. 11 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA V. ERNST VON WEIZSAEOKER, et al ANSWER BRIEF OF THE PROSECUTION IN THE SCHELLENBERG CASE Nurnberg 15 Novembor 1948 BY: Alexander G- Hardy Executive Counsel Arnost HorllE-Hockwald FOR? Telford Taylor Brigadier General,USA Chief of Counsel for Wajr Crimes and Robert M.W. Kempner Director, Political Ministries Division /;•> II iair^V. •-Ill' irt1 i The Tribunal has ruled that; briefs In answer to briefs of the opposing pe.rty must -be filed within a period of ten days after receipt of the first briefs.' date the Prosecution has not received an English translation of a brief for the defendant SCHELLENBERG-. However, it has been alleged by counsel for the defendant SCHELLENBERG- that his client has not been charged in the Indictment with criminal conduct in connection with the Operation Zeppelin, and it is further alleged that in this respect the Prosecution has submitted evidence for facts which are not even mentioned in the Indictment.
    [Show full text]
  • Nuremberg Prosecutor
    Henry T. King, Jr. (1919-2009), Nuremberg Prosecutor John Q. Barrett* Copyright © 2009 by John Q. Barrett. All rights reserved. After graduating from Yale Law School in 1943, Henry T. King, Jr. (whose friends then called him Harry) began employment as an associate at the Milbank, Tweed & Hope law firm in New York City. He soon was very busy working in the caverns of Wall Street. His young wife Betty, working elsewhere in Manhattan on a highly classified national defense project, was equally busy with her work. Realizing that they were not seeing each other very much, they started to have a standing dinner date each Wednesday night, meeting at 6:00 p.m. at one of the Schrafft’s stores that then filled the city. At one of their dinners in late 1945 or early 1946, Henry King asked Betty what she did all day. “I can’t tell you,” she replied. “Well, I am your husband, theoretically at least,” he pleaded. “You heard what I said,” she replied, adding, “What do you do all day?” “Well,” Henry said, “every afternoon at two o’clock I go to Chase Bank. I review corporate trust department documents. I work hard. And sometimes I work late at night.” “My God!,” said Betty King. “There is a world out there. We ought to be part of it.” * * * Henry King, who died on May 9, 2009, just short of his 90th birthday, followed his wife’s advice. He first made plans to leave Milbank for a smaller law firm where he could build his own practice.
    [Show full text]
  • Nuremberg and Vietnam: an American Tragedy, by Telford Taylor
    : Nuremberg and Vietnam Book Notes Nuremberg and Vietnam: An American Tragedy, by Telford Taylor 92 by Mat:cus G. Raskin Marcus Raskin. is co-director of The Institute for Policy Study, in Washington, D. C. Author of the forthcoming book Being and Doing, he has written extensively on Military planning, Foreign policy, and education. As Director of the Institute, he has played a large role in initiating and developing a systematic critique of the National Security Bureaucracies and Priorities. Telford Taylor, brilliant lawyer, scholar, chief war crimes prosecutor, even musician, but especially citizen, has written an important book about the law of war crimes and its relevance to Vietnam. In Nuremberg and Vietnam Taylor discusses in crisp but fervent style the history of the distinction between just and unjust wars as well as the generally accepted meanings of war crimes prior to the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials. H.e appears to define war crimes as those acts which are contrary to international law, e.g. treaties, or are in violation of either the military or civilian law of the perpetrator's own nation. Taylor's scholarly honesty shows through in the book, and his civic love for his country manifests it­ self in his analysis and the book's dedication "To the Flag and The Liberty and Justice For Which It Stantls." Taylor says he favored the American war in Vietnam until 1965. However, by that time he had begun to re­ evaluate his own position. In the last several years he has found it necessary to clarify the meanings of the Nuremberg judgments since many people were invoking their own interpretations and calling upon him, as a principal at Nuremberg, to legitimate their views.
    [Show full text]