Star Trek: 10 Dumbest Decisions By Starfleet Officers
5. Not Running A Diagnostic On The Enterprise Computer - Commodore Stone/Starfleet
In the first-season episode of The Original Series, Commodore Stone is the ranking officer when Captain Kirk is court-martialed over the supposed death of Ben Finney, Kirk's old colleague from the USS Intrepid. Finney is presumed killed when the ion pod he was supposedly inside was jettisoned by Kirk, to protect the Enterprise from a storm in space.
Things look grim for Kirk as the recorded images show the captain jettisoning the pod before ordering Finney to leave, which accounts to murder, or manslaughter at the very best. Kirk is adamant that this is wrong and that the computer is incorrect. All involved in the case are certain that this can't be the case. It is Spock who eventually discovers that the computer has been tampered with.
By playing it in several games of chess.
Not one officer or engineer checked to see if the records had been altered in any way, nor did they perform what should have been the most standard tests on the computer after the ship's arrival at the Starbase. Considering a highly decorated captain's career is on the line, this seems like negligence to the point of conspiracy!
This was incredibly foolish, and a decision that a commodore shouldn't have made.