One morning last October, 27 prisoners at the Presidio stockade in San Francisco disrupted roll call by staging a sitdown demonstration. The inmates said they were protesting against the action of a guard, who had needlessly shotgunned a suicidal prisoner trying to escape. They also complained of the unsanitary conditions of the stockade. The Army charged the 27 men with mutiny, and at the first of a series of courts-martial, three of them received sentences of up to 16 years (TIME, Feb. 21). There was an immediate public outcry at the harsh...
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