Follower's case
| Follower's case | |
|---|---|
| Court | Supreme Court of Themiclesia |
| Full case name | R. Th. v. Dzru et al. |
| Decided | February 22, 1945 |
| Case history | |
| Appealed to | Court of Appeal |
| Subsequent action(s) | Judgment upheld |
| Court membership | |
| Judges sitting | Nem CJ., Tan, Dar, Myik, Srum-gar, and Krwaps JJ. |
| Case opinions | |
| Unlawful military command not a defence | |
The Follower's case was a criminal case involving 42 Themiclesian military officers and soldiers of the 474th Regiment regarding their culpability in shooting and killing 4 Menghean soldiers who attempted to set the Themiclesian garrison on fire. The case rested upon whether the victims were shot in flagrante delicto and resisting arrest or after they had been arrested. There was argument whether the regimental commander gave permission for the four men's killing and under what mental impression. The judgment was made in the Supreme Court that all 42 individuals should bear collective responsibility for the four murders and were thus all sentenced to life imprisonment. In 1946, all convicts other than Krwi, who pulled the trigger, had their sentences commuted to seven years, and Krwi received the same commutation in 1947.
Summary
The case is remarkable as much of the investigative work was not performed by royal prosecutors but by the 227th Conveyance Regiment, a different unit in the vicinity. Apparently, the commander of the 227th had a personal grudge against the colonel over the 474th and consistently visited upon the latter to search for any signs of misbehaviour. After the 474th decamped, the 227th discovered a hastily covered grave containing four bodies, all with their hands tied behind their backs and bullet wounds in their torsos. Within 12 minutes of the bodies' discovery, the Baron of Krer, Lord President of Tribunes, the Provost-general of the Consolidated Board, and several military police detachments in the region were telegraphed. According to Dr. Tem, "no homicide was seized upon so eagerly in the history of judicature or reported so quickly."
Then, multiple officers of the 227th wrote friendly letters to their colleagues in the 474th, ostensibly to tease out information, resulting in further telegraphs to prosecutors. Such letters were disguised as to their true purposes so well indeed that none of the officers of the 474th suspected they were being investigated. Much information was thus betrayed, particularly as to the state of knowledge of multiple officers and the sources of the various proposals to deal with the apprehended arsonists.
When the case was tried, the defendants could not credibly explain away the (documented by over 6,000 photographic plates) fact that the victims had bound arms and legs. Kwri averred that the ropes were already on their limbs as they attempted to set fire to the camp, but owing to his inability to summon witnesses and plain contradiction of other co-defendents' testimonies, nobody in the court believed him. The other defendents privately agreed that Kwri should take most of the blame because he was the person who actually shot the four Menghean victims and so made most of their testimonies as hostile to Kwri as possible, namely by implying Kwri had some freedom to choose what was done to the victims; their efforts were in vain as the evidence of their complicity was overwhelming.
Most of the attention from court reporters rested on Colonel Mu's case, which he sought to defend by saying that he did not realize the four victims were already apprehended when the call was placed. He argued that he was under the impression the four arsonists were still at large when the caller asked whether they should "shoot to kill the arsonists", to which his reply of "yes" actually meant "his prima facie understanding of what the caller said, which he heard as that the arsonists were yet at large and endangering lives, has not appeared to him to be obviously forbidden on legal grounds, in his personal opinion". Nem CJ. rather blandly joked that nobody has expressed so much nuance with the single word "yes" in the history of human speech.
Mu strongly protested that he did not expect, and was taken by surprise to learn, the caller, Major Pi, made the suggestion to shoot the miscreants who were already apprehended, since "such a thing is so obviously unlawful" that he "should not be expected to anticipate that this thing is being suggested without further clarification." He expressed that Pi must have known what was suggested was openly unlawful and that Pi understands his acknowledgement cannot sanction that unlawful thing. Mu turned towards Pi and rather notoriously retorted that the fact Pi called him and presented him with such an ambiguous question is only "hard evidence that Pi knew what he suggested was illegal and wanted to dilute the culpability by a feint."