PRINCETON, N.J. — The recent release of Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, convicted of blowing up Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, sparked outrage.

Around the same time, the Philadelphia Eagles, an American football team, offered a second chance to former star Michael Vick, who was convicted of running a dog-fighting operation in which unsuccessful fighters were tortured and killed.

And William Calley, who commanded the platoon that massacred hundreds of Vietnamese civilians at the village of My Lai in 1968, has now broken his media silence and apologized for his actions.