Most Americans, including even many military lawyers, have never heard of the Houston Riot of 1917 and the ensuing mass Army courts-martial, leading to 110 convictions, 19 executions, and 63 life sentences. The convictions were set aside in 2023. This summer, a new book, Black Soldiers, White Laws: The Trqgedy of the 24th Infantry Division in 1917 Houston, by John A. Haymond, was published by Grove Atlantic. It's an excellent addition to the military justice bookshelf. Importantly, it not only tells the story of the mutiny (was it really a mutiny?) and the trials, but sets the stage by describing the background of race relations in the Army and in the country as a whole. The book does a good job of describing the legal arrangements in force at the time, and the author plainly benefited from the experience and professional knowledge of a range of subject matter experts.
For contemporary practitioners, numerous aspects of the proceedings are shocking. For example, there was only one defense counsel at the main trial, and he was not an attorney. The NAACP had a volunteer lawyer ready to assist, but he arrived only a few days before the trial, and the accuseds declined his assistance, reportedly because they were told that adding him at that late date would annoy the court-martial because it would have implied an insulting lack of confidence in the detailed [non-lawyer, white] defense counsel.
The case led to some improvements in American military justice, but it remains a terrible chapter in the military justice system's history.
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