Only One Officer Found Guilty of My Lai Attrocities
Lt. William L. Calley, Jr., flanked by George W. Latimer, his civilian lawyer and an unidentified officer, saluted the president of the six-officer jury. He had just received his sentence to a lifetime of hard labor for his role in the murder of twenty-two My Lai villagers in Vietnam on March 16, 1968: appeal at U.S. v. Calley, 46 C.M.R. 1131. Ultimately President Richard Nixon commuted his sentence to house arrest at Fort Benning. Calley was released to a federal parole officer on September 10, 1975. Of the fifteen officers who were charged, only Calley was found guilty of the massacre.