Army pays $725 to WWII vet for unfair trial

[Mrs Behavin]

LEESBURG, Florida (CNN) -- Samuel Snow thought when he got a check from the Pentagon that the Army was finally ready to give him the apology and the compensation he'd been denied for 63 years. He was wrong.
The Army imprisoned Snow in 1944 for a crime he says he couldn't have committed. The military overturned his conviction this year and sent him his back pay for the 15 months he spent in prison: $725.
Snow is one of just two defendants still alive from one of the biggest military trials of World War II.
Twenty-eight black soldiers were sent to prison after an Italian prisoner of war, Guglielmo Olivotto, was found hanged to death following a night of brawling at Fort Lawton in Seattle, Washington.
At a time when the military forces were segregated, 41 black soldiers were tried in one large group and were provided two attorneys to defend them all.
According to the Army, 28 of the soldiers were convicted of rioting, including Pvt. Samuel Snow, who spent 15 months behind bars.
Two of those soldiers also were convicted of manslaughter in the death of the POW and sentenced to 15 years in prison. Thirteen of the men were acquitted.
After being released from prison, Snow returned to the segregated South. He arrived home with a criminal record, a bad conduct discharge and no benefits such as those provided by the GI Bill of Rights. He became a janitor.
In October, the Army Board for Corrections of Military Records determined the defendants were denied a fair trial. The board said the prosecutor refused to give defense attorneys access to confidential evidence.
As a result of the findings, the Army overturned the convictions -- but stopped short of finding the defendants "not guilty."
"What it is saying is that they didn't receive their fair day in court," said Army spokesman Col. Dan Baggio.
The Army wrote checks to the surviving defendants as compensation for the back pay they were denied while in prison. Snow assumed that figure would be a substantial amount of money -- until the $725 check arrived at his home in central Florida.
If the payment had been adjusted for inflation, Snow would have received $7,768.13, according to the inflation calculator on the Labor Department's Web site.
If the $725 had been invested in 1946, when Snow was discharged from the Army, at 8 percent interest, compounded annually, it would have been worth more than $82,000 by now.
The Army said there are no legal provisions that allow it to consider adding accrued interest, adjustments for inflation or compensation for lost benefits.

Army pays $725 to WWII vet for unfair trial, imprisonment - CNN.com

 

[Murdoc]

i would raise hell if i were that guy.

 

[All Else Failed]

lol, three cheers for good ol' fashioned racism. *sarcasm*

 

[IntruderLS1]

lol, three cheers for good ol' fashioned racism. *sarcasm*

You think if it were a white guy, the Army would have broken its rules and paid the guy interest? :confused

 

[All Else Failed]

You think if it were a white guy, the Army would have broken its rules and paid the guy interest? :confused

I'm talking about the people back in the era that prosecuted him.

 

[IntruderLS1]

Oh. Yeah, that was weak.

I had the honor of meeting several of the Tuskegee airmen several years ago. I was assigned to their old unit, the 332nd when deployed over in the gulf. The story's those guys can tell you about how things were in the South vs occupied Europe would about make you sick. :mad

Good thing Martin came calling.