Editing My Lai massacre (section)

===Court martial===
On 17 November 1970, a [[courts-martial in the United States|court-martial in the United States]] charged 14 officers, including Major General Koster, the Americal Division's commanding officer, with suppressing information related to the incident. Most of the charges were later dropped. Brigade commander Colonel Henderson was the only high ranking commanding officer who stood trial on charges relating to the cover-up of the Mỹ Lai massacre; he was acquitted on 17 December 1971.<ref>{{cite web|author=Linder, Douglas|url=http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/mylai/myl_bhender.html|title=Biographies of Key Figures in the My Lai Courts-Martial: Oran Henderson|publisher=UMKC School of Law|year=1999|access-date=18 June 2011|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101106193533/http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/mylai/myl_bhender.html|archive-date=6 November 2010}}</ref>

During the four-month-long trial, Calley consistently claimed that he was [[Superior orders|following orders]] from his commanding officer, Captain Medina. Despite that, he was convicted and sentenced to life in prison on 29 March 1971, after being found guilty of premeditated murder of not fewer than 20 people. Two days later, President [[Richard Nixon]] made the controversial decision to have Calley released from armed custody at [[Fort Benning]], Georgia, and put under [[house arrest]] pending appeal of his sentence. Calley's conviction was upheld by the Army Court of Military Review in 1973 and by the U.S. Court of Military Appeals in 1974.<ref name="45 years later">McCarty, Mary. [https://web.archive.org/web/20130317111155/http://www.stripes.com/news/veterans/45-years-later-impact-from-my-lai-case-is-still-felt-1.212088 45 years later, impact from My Lai case is still felt], ''Dayton Daily News'', 16 March 2013.</ref>

In August 1971, Calley's sentence was reduced by the [[Convening authority (court-martial)|convening authority]] from life to twenty years. Calley would eventually serve three and one-half years under house arrest at Fort Benning including three months in the [[United States Disciplinary Barracks|disciplinary barracks]] at [[Fort Leavenworth]], [[Kansas]]. In September 1974, he was paroled by the [[United States Secretary of the Army|Secretary of the Army]], [[Howard Callaway]].<ref name="45 years later"/><ref>Neier, Aryeh. ''War Crimes: Brutality, Genocide, Terror, and the Struggle for Justice'', New York: Times Books, 1998.<!-- ISSN/ISBN needed --></ref>

In a separate trial, Medina denied giving the orders that led to the massacre, and was acquitted of all charges, effectively negating the prosecution's theory of "[[command responsibility]]", now referred to as the "Medina standard". Several months after his acquittal, however, Medina admitted he had suppressed evidence and had lied to Henderson about the number of civilian deaths.<ref>{{cite web|last=Linder|first=Douglas|url=http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/mylai/Myl_intro.html|title=An Introduction to the My Lai Courts-Martial|publisher=Law.umkc.edu|year=1999|access-date= 18 June 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101224205146/http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/mylai/myl_intro.html |archive-date=24 December 2010}}</ref>

Captain Kotouc, an intelligence officer from 11th Brigade, was also court-martialed and found not guilty. Koster was demoted to brigadier general and lost his position as the [[Superintendent of the United States Military Academy|Superintendent of West Point]]. His deputy, Brigadier General Young, received a letter of censure. Both were stripped of [[Distinguished Service Medal (US Army)|Distinguished Service Medals]] which had been awarded for service in Vietnam.<ref name="Cover-Up"/>

Of the 26 men initially charged, Calley was the only one convicted.<ref>{{Cite magazine|url=https://time.com/3739572/american-atrocity-remembering-my-lai/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150316143120/http://time.com/3739572/american-atrocity-remembering-my-lai/|url-status=live|archive-date=March 16, 2015|title=American Atrocity: Remembering My Lai|last=Cosgrove|first=Ben|magazine=Time|language=en-us|access-date=30 March 2018}}</ref> Some have argued that the outcome of the Mỹ Lai courts-martial failed to uphold the laws of war established in the [[Nuremberg Trials|Nuremberg]] and [[International Military Tribunal for the Far East|Tokyo War Crimes Tribunals]].<ref name=Marshall>{{Cite news|last=Marshall|first=Burke|author2=Goldstein, Joseph|title=Learning From My Lai: A Proposal on War Crimes|work=The New York Times|date=2 April 1976|page=26}}</ref>