THE LAW: Justice Denied

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The Supreme Court put an end last week to a treason case that had been bungled from the beginning: the prosecution of ex-Sergeant John David Provoo, a Californian who took up Buddhism in his youth, lived in a Japanese monastery, later enlisted in the U.S. Army. Captured on Corregidor in 1942, at 25, he served the Japanese as a stool pigeon, according to his fellow prisoners, and brought about the execution of a U.S. captain. But the Army brought no charges after the war, and Provoo re-enlisted; it was 1949 before he was indicted for treason, and 1953 before he was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Last year the U.S. Court of Appeals for New York reversed Provoo's conviction on technical grounds: he should have been tried in Maryland, where first picked up, and he should not have been cross-examined on the "prejudicial" issue of homosexuality. He was indicted again in Baltimore, but last March U.S. District Judge Roszel C. Thomsen threw out the case, ruling: "Provoo . . . has been denied the right of speedy trial within the meaning of the Sixth Amendment." Last week the Supreme Court upheld the dismissal.