John E. Day

Uncommon card · No. 120275

John E. Day Jr. (1929 – September 23, 1959) was a U.S. Army soldier during the Korean War, as well as a murderer, rapist, and convicted war criminal. In December 1950, shortly before the start of the Third Battle of Seoul, Day, who was serving in Seoul as a truck driver, attacked a family of South Korean refugees. He raped the mother, shot and killed her husband, and threw the couple's baby, who later died, on the front seat of a truck. Day was court-martialed for the crime, sentenced to death, and executed by hanging in 1959. After examining the case, J. William Barba, assistant special counsel in the White House, stated that while Day's crimes were "committed under stress of war conditions," his sentence was appropriate. Barba noted that Day was black, but so were two members of the military court at his court-martial. The United States Armed Forces had been desegregated via an executive order by Harry S. Truman in 1948, and under U.S. military law, the decision to sentence a defendant...

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