Clint Lorance

"the three Taliban scouts riding the motorcycle approached Lorance’s platoon from the Northeast ... several insurgents were using ICOM radios and maneuvering into fighting positions to the North, and ... a motorcycle rider came down to the West who was stopped, detained, and was found to have [homemade explosive material] on his hands".

One of Lorance's defense attorneys, lawyer and author Don Brown, published a book in 2019 entitled Travesty of Justice: The Shocking Prosecution of Lt. Clint Lorance. In it he argued that the Army did not permit the jury to consider evidence showing that Afghan National Army soldiers accompanying Lorance's patrol began firing at the motorcycle first, and that the Army kept biometric evidence from the jury that suggested that the motorcycle riders were Taliban bombmakers. Brown frequently urged on Fox News that President Donald Trump should free and exonerate Lorance.

In 2019, Lorance's case was featured in the Starz documentary series Leavenworth.

On November 15, 2019, President Trump signed an Executive Grant of Clemency granting Lorance clemency, consisting of a full pardon, and ordered Lorance's release after he had spent six years in prison.

In 2017 the Republican Party of Louisiana passed a unanimous resolution in support of Lorance's exoneration, which read: "First Lieutenant Lorance made the quick but spot-on decision to order his men to fire upon a motorcycle gunning toward his vulnerable foot patrol, as intelligence reports had shown this to be a common method of attack by the Taliban against U.S. troops."

In December 2014, an attorney for Lorance filed pleadings alleging that Lorance was the victim of prosecutorial misconduct. On January 5, 2015, the Commanding General of the 82nd Airborne Division, Major General Richard D. Clarke, completed a review, upheld Lorance's conviction, and directed one year off Lorance's original sentence of 20 years confinement due to post-trial delay.

In January 2015, supporters of Lorance created a petition on the White House website asking the Obama Administration to grant a Presidential pardon to Lorance. It received 124,966 signatures. The White House declined to comment on the specifics, saying instead that requests for executive clemency for federal offenses should be directed to the Office of the Pardon Attorney in the US Department of Justice.

In September 2015, defense attorneys filed a petition with the U.S. Army Court of Criminal Appeals for a new trial, arguing that evidence linking the two killed Afghans to terror networks was left out of Lorance's court-martial proceedings. They argued that biometric evidence showed that one of the men on the motorcycle was linked to an improvised explosive device incident prior to the shooting, a second rider was also involved in an insurgent attack, and the third rider was connected to a hostile action against U.S. troops. The court ruled in June 2017, however, that the evidence would not have been permitted at trial, and even if it had, it would not have helped Lorance's case.

Another lieutenant in the 4th Brigade Combat Team was wounded in a roadside bombing by shrapnel; one of four injuries the platoon suffered in a matter of days. The 28-year-old Lorance—without any combat experience—was chosen as his replacement, and became the platoon leader of 1st Platoon, C Troop. On his first day in command, and first day ever leading a combat patrol, the platoon came under fire from insurgents riding motorcycles.

Lorance was charged nine months later, though the soldiers who fired the shots were not themselves charged. He was tried in August 2013 in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. His trial was just the second time a US Army officer was charged with murder for battlefield deaths in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In addition, only two US soldiers were convicted of crimes in World War II, the Vietnam War, and the Korean War combined. Nine members of his platoon testified against him. Lorance never testified in the court hearings, though he did take responsibility for his men's actions. Lorance's lawyer said Lorance's actions were justified by the threat level at the time, by the information conveyed to him by Army helicopter pilots that insurgents were loitering on three sides of the platoon, and by intelligence reports that men on motorcycles were presumed to be Taliban members, which led him to believe that the men on the motorcycle were Taliban suicide bombers and an imminent threat.

At the end of a three-day trial, in August 2013 the 28-year-old Lorance was found guilty by a military judge of two counts of second-degree murder, obstruction of justice, and other charges "related to a pattern of threatening and intimidating actions toward Afghans" as the platoon's leader. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison, forfeiture of all pay, and dismissal from the Army.

Early the next day, on July 2, 2012, Lorance and his patrol went on his second combat patrol, with most of his two dozen soldiers on foot. The patrol entered the same location in which they had been fired upon, in a dangerous valley in a Taliban-controlled volatile area of Zhari District in Kandahar Province in southern Afghanistan. The area was a hotbed of Taliban insurgent activity.

After a deployment in Iraq, he attended the University of North Texas, and graduated in 2010, becoming the first college graduate in his family. Lorance then lived in Celeste, Texas, and Merit, Texas, in Hunt County, Texas.

On his 18th birthday Lorance enlisted in the US Army. He was deployed first in South Korea for two years as a traffic officer, and then in Iraq, where he served for 15 months guarding detainees. After graduating from college with his bachelor's degree, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in 2010. He was a decorated soldier without any history of disciplinary actions in the military, and was promoted to first lieutenant. In March 2012 he was deployed to a small outpost in southern Afghanistan with the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 73rd Cavalry Regiment, of the 82nd Airborne Division.

Clint Allen Lorance (born December 13, 1984) is a former United States Army officer. He served as a first lieutenant with the 4th Brigade Combat Team of the 82nd Airborne Division. In July 2012, while he was leading a combat patrol in a Taliban-controlled area of Kandahar Province in southern Afghanistan, three Afghan men approached his patrol on a motorcycle travelling at an unusual speed. The three Afghan men, after being fired upon, dismounted from their motorcycle and approached Afghan National Army soldiers who were at the front of the mixed U.S.-Afghan patrol, who asked the three men to leave. Lorance ordered soldiers in his platoon to open fire at the three men, killing two of them. After he returned to the United States, Lorance was charged with two counts of second-degree murder and court martialed. At trial, soldiers from his platoon testified that the motorcycle driver ignored commands to stop, but several also testified that the motorcycle could not have reached the platoon's position. In August 2013, Lorance was found guilty; he was sentenced to 19 years in prison after his sentence was reviewed by his commanding general. He was confined in the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas for six years, until pardoned by President Trump on November 15, 2019.