The movie Conspirator by Robert Redford with Robin Wright playing Mary Surratt presents a picture that is not often seen in most American History textbooks. As we know, Mary Surratt was tried and executed for her part in the conspiracy to kill Lincoln. This source suggests that her guilt was in doubt but what was not in doubt was the fairness-or lack thereof-of her trial. She was tried by a military commission made up of military officers who found her guilty but a majority of them voted for life in prison and not execution. It seems that Secretary of War Edwin Stanton overturned that decision. Her lawyer, Frederick Aiken-a wounded Union captain, took her case to a civilian judge in DC and was granted a writ of habeau corpus that said she should be delivered to a civilian court for re-trial. President Andrew Johnson overturned that writ and the execution followed. He acted under the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act of 1863. (We have always heard about Lincoln's denial of habeas corpus rights to northern civilians during the war, but never anything about A. Johnson's use of the practice). The movie notes that Mary Surratt's son-John Jr-was captured and tried two years later by a civilian court and he was found not guilty. The US Supreme Court ruled military trials in areas where civilian courts are still functioning to be unconstitutional; the ex Parte Mulligan case of 1866. Mary Surratt's chief defender quit the law and became an editor of the Washington Post.
The others executed with her were David Herold, Lewis Powell (aka Lewis Payne) and George Atzerodt)
(Source: Movie, Conspirator by Robert Redford 2011)
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