US pilot reprimanded in Canadian ‘friendly fire’ deaths sues Air Force for privacy violation News
US pilot reprimanded in Canadian ‘friendly fire’ deaths sues Air Force for privacy violation

[JURIST] National Guard Major Harry Schmidt is suing the US Air Force for violating his privacy after it published a letter of reprimand [text] for his involvement in a friendly-fire incident in Afghanistan [CBC backgrounder]. On April 18, 2002 Schmidt and another pilot killed four Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan [JURIST news archive] when they dropped a 500-pound bomb, mistaking the soldiers for Taliban fighters. After finding Schmidt guilty [JURIST report] of dereliction of duty following an Article 32 hearing [JAG backgrounder] in July 2004, the Air Force agreed not to court-martial him and permitted him to remain in the National Guard.

Schmidt alleges that the Air Force published the scathing letter against him in violation of their agreement, damaging his reputation. The suit, filed in federal court on Friday, asks for unspecified damages. Schmidt first indicated his intent to sue the Air Force [JURIST report] in 2004. AP has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

White supremacists overthrow government in Wilmington, North Carolina

A group of white supremacists overthrew the government of Wilmington, North Carolina on November 10, 1898, killing at least dozens of Black people in the process. The city's Republican government resigned after the 500-2,000 strong white mob burned the offices of a Black-owned newspaper and terrorized black neighborhoods. The new state Democratic government passed laws in 1899 disenfranchising Black voters across North Carolina. Learn more about the 1898 Wilmington Coup.

Supreme Court limited free speech in wartime

On November 10, 1919, the US Supreme Court ruled in Abrams v. United States that the federal government could criminalize speech if it was of a type tending to bring about harmful results, in this case, resistance to the United States war effort. In a powerful dissenting opinion, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes countered that even during wartime, free speech could only be curtailed when there was clear and "present danger of immediate evil or an intent to bring it about."

Leonid Brezhnev dies

On November 10, 1982, Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev died of a heart attack. He had served as leader of the USSR from October 1964 until his death. Following his death, the Soviet Union cycled through three more leaders during the 1980s until Mikhail Gorbachev allowed the country to dissolve in 1991. Read an obituary of Leonid Brezhnev from the New York Times.