Thursday, January 19th, 2006

In August 1944, the murder of an Italian prisoner of war at Seattle's Fort Lawton stunned the nation. The three American soldiers charged with the crime and forty others accused of storming the Italian barracks were all black. Despite a lack of evidence to implicate these men, the War Department convened a criminal trial at the fort with Leon Jaworski appointed to prosecute the case. It would become World War II's largest army court-martial.