I'm interested if you or any of our other legal scholars have any thoughts about the execution of the accused Lincoln conspirators Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, David Herold, and George Atzerodt. All the people who were discovered to have had anything to do with the assassination of Abraham Lincoln or anyone with the slightest contact with John Wilkes Booth or David Herold on their flight from Ford's Theatre were put behind bars. Mary Surratt was the first woman ever hanged by the U.S government, but it was the treatment of all of John wilkes Booth's accused conspirators that can only be defined as egregious and suspicious. The accused were forced to wear hoods and confined to shackles throughout the duration of their entire 2-week holding and of course were not allowed to speak on their own behalfs at their military tribunal from what I understand. And it's today very debatable whether or not their role was as complicit as that of Dr. Samuel Mudd, who was spared execution and given 20 years in prison but who was later pardoned.

Correct if I'm wrong, or if any of that's revisionist history, but the supposed conspirators were not even given a proper hanging (if such a thing exists) as Mary Surratt and the other three were forced to stand in the hot sun for almost an hour while still wearing hoods over their heads (very unusual) before finally having the trap-door open beneath them. Ironcially, after sentencing Mary Surratt to hang, five of the jurors signed a letter recommending clemency, but the darilek President Andrew Johnson refused to stop the execution (Johnson later claimed he never saw the letter.) 3 other conspirators were later pardoned by Johnson and spared the gallow's pole.