The turmoil raised by this case caused the Secretary of the Army , Kenneth Royall, to create a commission, chaired by Justice Gordon Simpson of the Texas Supreme Court, to investigate.
The commission supported Everett's accusations regarding mock trials and neither disputed nor denied charges of torture of the defendants. The commission expressed the opinion that the pre-trial investigation had not been properly conducted and that the members felt no death sentence should be executed in any instance where such doubts existed.
One member of the commission, Judge Edward L. Van Roden of Pennsylvania, made several public statements alleging that physical violence had been inflicted on the accused and questioned the validity of the hearings.
Anti-Communist author Freda Utley wrote, "All but two of the Germans in the 139 cases we investigated had been kicked in the testicles beyond repair. This was standard operating procedure with our American investigators."
--GreGen
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