Ernest Medina - Court-martial

Court-martial

According to the 1970 investigation by General William R. Peers, Medina:

• Informed his men that any of the residents in Son My Village might be Viet Cong or sympathizers. This caused many of the men in his company to believe they would find only armed enemy in the hamlets and directly contributed to the killing of unarmed noncombatants which followed.

• Planned, ordered and supervised the execution by his company of an unlawful operation against inhabited hamlets in Son My Village, which included the destruction of houses by burning, killing of livestock, and the destruction of crops and other foodstuffs, and the closing of wells; and implicitly directed the killing of any persons found there.

• Possibly personally killed as many as three noncombatants in My Lai.

• Actively suppressed information concerning the killing of noncombatants in Son My Village.

Captain Medina was court-martialed in 1971 for willingly allowing his men to murder My Lai noncombatants. Medina denied all the charges, and claimed that he never gave any orders to kill Vietnamese noncombatants. Medina's defense team, led by F. Lee Bailey, alleged that his men killed Vietnamese noncombatants under their own volition and not under Medina's orders. Medina also testified that he did not become aware that his troops were out of control at My Lai until it was too late.

Medina also strongly denied killing any Vietnamese noncombatant at My Lai, with the exception of a young woman whom two soldiers testified that they found hiding in a ditch. When she emerged with her hands held up, Medina shot her. Medina claimed that he thought that the unarmed woman had a grenade in which Bailey and his lawyers brought up many incidents during the Vietnam War of Viet Cong suspects and sympathizers faking surrendering in order to get close to American military personnel to try to harm or kill them with hidden pistols or grenades.

In August 1971, Medina was ultimately found not guilty of all charges relating to the deaths of more than 500 South Vietnamese civilians in the massacre. His trial deliberations lasted approximately 60 minutes. Nevertheless, his military career was finished and Medina resigned from the U.S. Army shortly thereafter.

Lieutenant William Calley, a platoon leader serving in Medina's company during the massacre and who claimed he was following orders from Medina, was found guilty of various crimes. Calley ultimately served 3½ years of house arrest in his quarters at Fort Benning, Georgia and was released in 1974 by a federal judge.