Military Death Sentence Vacated

An Army Court of Criminal Appeals has vacat­ed the death sen­tence of William Kreutzer, a Fort Bragg sol­dier who was sent to the military’s death row for killing a fel­low sol­dier and wound­ing oth­ers in 1995. The Court cit­ed a num­ber of grounds for the rul­ing that opens the door for rehear­ings on some charges and the sen­tence. For exam­ple, Kreutzer’s attor­neys failed to ade­quate­ly explain the sig­nif­i­cance of their client’s men­tal health prob­lems for the pan­el that deter­mined his guilt and sen­tence. In the rul­ing, Col. James S. Currie not­ed, ​“Appellant’s tri­al can be summed up in one sen­tence: Three defense coun­sel who lacked the abil­i­ty and expe­ri­ence to defend this cap­i­tal case were fur­ther ham­pered by the mil­i­tary judge’s erro­neous deci­sion to deny them nec­es­sary expert assis­tance, there­by ren­der­ing the con­test­ed find­ings and the sen­tence unre­li­able.” Court doc­u­ments revealed that Kreutzer had con­sid­ered sui­cide at age 16 and ​“fan­ta­sized out loud” about killing fel­low sol­diers after they teased him and played prac­ti­cal jokes on him. The Appeals Court crit­i­cized the tri­al judge for refus­ing to grant a defense request for a ​“mit­i­ga­tion spe­cial­ist,” who could explain how Kreutzer’s men­tal health prob­lems con­tributed to his actions. See Military Death Penalty. See also Representation.

Pentagon List Gives Names of 169 Military Members Who Were Executed

A list con­tain­ing the names of 169 mem­bers of the U.S. mil­i­tary who were exe­cut­ed between 1942 and 1961 was recent­ly dis­cov­ered at the Pentagon. The list also con­tains a few dozen addi­tion­al cas­es where per­sons were sen­tenced to death, but not exe­cut­ed, and the names of 7 German pris­on­ers of war who were exe­cut­ed. The 1961 exe­cu­tion of Pvt. John Bennett, who was hung after con­vic­tions for rape and attempt­ed mur­der, was the mil­i­tary’s last exe­cu­tion. The ledger also includes the name of Pvt. Eddie Slovik, who is the only mem­ber of the U.S. mil­i­tary to be exe­cut­ed for deser­tion since the Civil War. The list was dis­cov­ered by acci­dent by Pentagon employ­ees and was made pub­lic as the mil­i­tary pre­pares to try accused ter­ror­ists cur­rent­ly held at the deten­tion cen­ter in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The death penal­ty is a pos­si­ble sen­tence in such mil­i­tary tri­bunals. (Associated Press, December 12, 2003)