The Character of Leon Jaworski, Watergate , and the Fort Lawton Riot
Manage episode 448907588 series 3445865
For all of the folks who have said to me that our long documentary on Watergate and the massive evidence of alleged prosecutorial misconduct just did not seem plausible. This special edition is for you. It is a story I had not heard before until our podcast's friend , Geoff Shepard, sent the story to me and then I proceeded to research it.
It is the story of one of greatest injustices ever perpetuated on a group of our soldiers, accusing three African American fighting men of murder, and causing 47 more, all African Americans, to face trial and court martial for a riot in November of 1944. It would be another 64 years before this injustice was ever set straight. An early investigation had been conducted of the events in question before the Army Prosecutor had been sent to work on the case and that investigation had cleared every single African American soldier involved of any wrong doing.
But the Prosecutor decided to prosecute all of them anyway, even though he knew of the report that said they were all innocent men. He actively hid the report refusing to turn it over to a rushed Defense Team knowing they only had 10 days to prepare their case. It was a travesty of American Justice.
That prosecutor was named Leon Jaworski and the case has many earie similarities to the long national nightmare of Watergate, we just chronicled in our last three season series. This is a sad, sad , story. A story that brings new insight to the massive amount of new evidence that has emerged that shows that Richard Nixon, and many of his top aids, may not have been as guilty as we have all been led to believe for the past half century.
To learn more about the 1944 Fort Lawton riot see these links :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Lawton_riot
KCTS 9 Connects: Miscarriage of Justice
https://youtu.be/Nxil2dibqiU
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