The Clint Lorance Court-Martial: An Order to Fire and a Presidential Pardon
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Army First Lieutenant Clint Lorance never fired his weapon in the shooting he was convicted for. On July 2, 2012, near Strong Point Payenzai in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, he ordered his platoon to fire on three unarmed men on a motorcycle. A machine gun killed two of them and wounded the third, who fled. Soldiers from his own platoon testified at his court-martial that the riders posed no imminent hostile threat. He was convicted in 2013 of two counts reported as second-degree murder, of obstruction of justice, and of other charges, and sentenced to 19 years. On November 15, 2019, after he had served about six years, President Trump granted him a full pardon. The case is about where liability for an unlawful use of force lands when the person who decided to kill did so with an order, not a trigger.
The Lorance Record in Brief
| Item | Record |
|---|---|
| Accused | First Lieutenant Clint Lorance, platoon leader in the 82nd Airborne Division |
| Time with the platoon | Briefly; he had replaced a lieutenant wounded by an IED days before |
| Event | July 2, 2012, near Strong Point Payenzai, Zharay district, Kandahar Province |
| Order | Over the radio, for the platoon's gun truck to engage the riders with an M240B machine gun |
| Result | Two riders killed; the third wounded and fled |
| Conviction (2013) | Two counts reported as second-degree murder, obstruction of justice, and related offenses |
| Sentence | 19 years, served at Fort Leavenworth |
| Appeal | Army Court of Criminal Appeals denied relief in 2017; a petition was later filed in federal court in Kansas |
| Pardon | Full pardon, Nov. 15, 2019 |
The Order and What the Platoon Saw
Army Times reported the sequence from court records. One soldier “initially fired two shots, missed and watched as the Afghan men came to a stop, dismounted their bike and walked towards the Afghan National Army soldiers who were at the front of the U.S.-Afghan patrol”. The Afghan soldiers gestured for the riders to leave. “At that point, Lorance ordered over the radio for the platoon’s gun truck to engage the Afghan motorcyclists using an M240B machine gun, killing two of the riders and wounding the third, who then managed to flee.”
His own soldiers testified against him. “Several of Lorance’s soldiers testified at his court-martial that the riders posed no imminent hostile threat at the time of the shooting, helping to secure a conviction.” One of them, former Specialist Todd Fitzgerald, told Army Times in 2015: “Us testifying against him, it wasn’t a matter of not liking him, it wasn’t a matter of any type of grudge or coercion”. He added, “If you kill local citizens, they’re no longer willing to help you.”
How an Order Makes the Officer the Killer
“Though Lorance never fired his weapon, he was convicted for making the call to engage”, Army Times wrote. The legal basis is Article 77 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. A person who “commits an offense punishable by this chapter, or aids, abets, counsels, commands, or procures its commission” is a principal. An officer who commands a killing is liable for it as if he had fired.
“Second-degree murder” is the term the press used. Article 118 does not use it. It defines murder by the accused’s state of mind: “a premeditated design to kill”, an intent “to kill or inflict great bodily harm”, an inherently dangerous act showing “a wanton disregard of human life”, or a killing during certain listed felonies. The reports do not identify the clause under which Lorance was convicted.
The order also matters for the soldiers who receive one. Under Rule for Courts-Martial 916(d), obedience to orders is a defense unless the accused “knew the orders to be unlawful or a person of ordinary sense and understanding would have known the orders to be unlawful.” The Manual for Courts-Martial (2024 ed.), Part IV, paragraph 16.c, says the inference that an order is lawful “does not apply to a patently illegal order, such as one that directs the commission of a crime.” In the Lorance case, the testimony of the soldiers who saw no threat was evidence that the order to fire was not a lawful use of force.
The other convictions show what followed. Army Times reported that Lorance “was also convicted of threatening a local Afghan; firing an M14 rifle into a village, trying to have one of his soldiers lie about receiving incoming fire and obstructing justice by making a false radio report after the two men on the motorcycle were killed.”
The Biometric Appeal
In a 2017 petition to the Army Court of Criminal Appeals, Lorance’s lawyers argued that “biometric evidence showed that at least one of the men on the motorcycle was linked to an improvised explosive device incident prior to the shootings.” The court denied the appeal. According to Army Times, the judges “wrote in their opinion that Lorance knew none of that information and the victims posed no threat at the time.” They “declined to require trial counsel to seek out and ‘search into the abyss of the intelligence community’ for such information.”
As Army Times summarized it, the ruling turned on what Lorance knew when he gave the order. Information about the riders’ past that he did not have could not, on the court’s reasoning, change whether they posed a threat at that moment. Lorance’s lawyer, John N. Maher, answered that “the prosecutors urged the jury that the victims were civilians.” That is a disagreement about how the government described the victims, not about what Lorance knew. The petition later went to federal civilian court in Kansas, Army Times reported.
The Pardon
On November 15, 2019, Trump granted full pardons to Lorance and to Army Major Mathew Golsteyn, who was awaiting trial. On the same day he ordered the promotion of Navy SEAL Edward Gallagher back to chief petty officer. Military Times reported the Army’s statement that the President’s pardon power under the Constitution “extends to military court-martial proceedings”. WNYC reported that Lorance had “served six years of a 19-year sentence” and that Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy “had argued against clearing the three men as a bad example to other troops in the field, according to The New York Times.”
The pardon ended the punishment. The conviction rests on a factual record the pardon did not reopen, including the platoon’s testimony that the riders posed no threat when Lorance ordered the gun truck to fire.
The Order Was the Act
An officer’s order to use deadly force is a criminal act when the force is unlawful. Under Article 77, the officer who commands the killing is a principal whether or not he fires. Whether the force was lawful is judged by the threat visible when the order was given. Information discovered later about the people killed did not change the appellate court’s view of that moment. The soldiers who testified that they saw no threat gave the evidence that convicted their commander. The pardon, a power outside the court-martial system, removed his sentence. It did not change what the record shows about the order.
Sources
- Army Times, “Army officer convicted of murder in Afghanistan to get another look by civilian court”, July 1, 2019
- Military Times, “Trump grants clemency to troops in three controversial war crimes cases”, Nov. 2019
- WNYC (NPR), “Trump Pardons 2 Service Members Accused Of War Crimes And Restores Another’s Rank”, Nov. 2019
- 10 U.S.C. 877, Article 77, Principals (Cornell LII)
- 10 U.S.C. 918, Article 118, Murder (Cornell LII)
- Manual for Courts-Martial, United States (2024 ed.), Part II, R.C.M. 916(d); Part IV, para. 16.c.
This case study describes a public court-martial record, a later appeal as reported, and the pardon that followed. It is educational information, not legal advice.