Episode Details
Back to Episodes
Nineteen Acts of Injustice of the Washington National Guard: The One That Got Away Act 2
Description
Military Illumination — "The One That Got Away" (Act 2)
Series: Nineteen Acts of Injustice of the Washington National Guard Host: Gary Episode: Act 2 — "The One That Got Away" Runtime: ~19 minutes
Episode Summary
In this gripping second installment of his investigative series, host Gary unpacks a stunning case of military injustice from 1998 — one where the guilty walked free and the innocent were charged with the crime.
The story picks up where Act 1, "The Boiler Room," left off: a supply sergeant from Lima Company had secretly stored equipment in Echo Company's boiler room at a Washington National Guard unit based at Camp Murray, part of the 1st of the 168th Aviation Battalion at Fort Lewis. After a full day of surveillance, interrogation, and pressure, the Echo Company sergeant — the person whose space was used without their knowledge — was finally brought into the office of Major William Palmer Shaw, the battalion's executive officer.
What happened in that office raises serious legal alarms. Rather than reading the sergeant's Article 31 rights (the military equivalent of Miranda warnings) before questioning, Major Shaw read them only after — and when asked why, he bluntly replied, "To cover our butts." Gary poses a chilling question to listeners: In the military, can they get away with interrogating someone first and reading rights only after extracting a confession? His answer: yes, and it happens far more often than the military would like to admit.
The real perpetrator — the Lima Company supply sergeant who had actually moved and hidden the equipment — was called in the following day and assured, "Nothing's gonna happen to you. We just want to know where you stored the equipment." And that's exactly how it played out. He confessed, led officials to a secured Conex storage container on base containing roughly $50,000 worth of equipment, and then... nothing happened to him. He retired as a staff sergeant with a clean record.
But the injustice doesn't stop there. In a breathtaking move, the equipment recovered from the guilty sergeant's hiding spot was added to the charging documents of the innocent Echo Company sergeant. The evidence of the crime was taken from the person who committed it and placed on the person who didn't.
What's Next
The next episode will introduce Captain Gregory Goodell, the JAG legal counsel assigned to the case — and Gary asks the question that will drive Act 3: Was he a good attorney, or one of the best worst attorneys the military had ever seen?
https://jsc.defense.gov/Portals/99/Documents/UCMJ%20-%2020December2019.pdf