My opinion hasn't changed...I assume yours hasn't either! ;-)
My opinion hasn't changed...I assume yours hasn't either! ;-)
More or less, although I will make the distinction between being convicted and being executed (I believe it was right they were convicted - but I am not convinced the sentence was fair), and also some distinction between the defendants.
As a number of British officers (by which in this case, I mean, those regarded as British by the Court, rather than seen as colonials) convicted of similar offences were merely cashiered, I think Morant, Handcock, and Witten could be regarded as having been unjustly treated by being sentenced to death and life imprisonment respectively (Witten was released from his life sentence after only two years suggesting there would be quite a lot of agreement with that). But Morant was educated enough to know the rules of war, and to understand that he was breaking them, so I believe the guilty verdict was justified, and the sentence would have been justified in my view as well, if not for the comparison with British officers (in particular Lieutenant Henry Picton who not only sat on Morant's 'court' but personally commanded the firing squad and personally shot Visser in the head.).
Handcock is a different matter. He was not a well educated man, except in his very limited field of providing veterinary care for horses. He probably did not know that Morant's orders were illegal, and that he should have therefore not obeyed them. While ignorance of the law is no excuse in law, I find it rather suprising his sentence was not commuted as Witton's was - especially seeing Morant had specifically accepted personal responsibility and sought to clear him.
There is a current petition to issue a posthumous pardon on the grounds the three men did not receive a fair trial. If that succeeds, I certainly won't see it as an injustice - even if guilty, they were entitled to a fair trial and if they didn't get it, they should be pardoned.