Holocaust trial judges
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See: Thomas J. Dodd
Judge Jan Sehn
Mr Justice Gray (Irving trial)
Meinerzhagen, Judge (Zundel trial)
''The more you get to know how German and other European courts can behave in such cases, the more you start thinking that this is just like one those absurd Kafkaesque worlds that should only exist in literature but yet they are actually real. Very real. And according to the records of the last trials these courts, together, of course, with the entire set of laws and procedures that allow them to get away with what they do, get more and more absurd. It almost feels like these courts don’t belong in such developed democracies as the European ones. It feels like you enter a door to the star chambers of the Inquisition.'' [2016 June] What Happened to Reinhold Hanning? By Roberto Hernandez
[1988] Zundel]
In January 1987, a five-judge appeals court decided to throw out the 1985
verdict against Ernst Zündel for some very basic reasons: Judge Hugh Locke had
not allowed the defense any influence in the jury selection process and the jury
had been misled by the judge on the very meaning of the trial. As for me, I have
attended many trials in my life, including some carried out in France during the
period of the "Purge" at the end and after World War II. Never have I
encountered a judge so partial, autocratic and violent as Judge Hugh Locke.
Anglo-Saxon law offers many more guarantees than French law but it only takes
one man to pervert the best of systems. Judge Locke was such a man.
The second trial began on January 18, 1988, under the direction of Judge
Ronald Thomas, who is a friend, it seems, of Judge Locke. Judge Thomas was often
angry and was frankly hostile to the defense, but he had more finesse than his
predecessor. The ruling by the five-judge appeal court also inhibited him
somewhat. Judge Hugh Locke had imposed numerous restrictions on free expression
by the witnesses and experts for the defense. For example, he forbade me to use
any of the photos I had taken at Auschwitz. I had no right to use arguments of a
chemical, cartographical, or architectural nature (even though I had been the
first person in the world to publish the plans for the Auschwitz and Birkenau
crematories). I was not allowed to talk about either the American gas chambers
or the aerial reconnaissance photos of Auschwitz and Birkenau. Even the
testimony of the eminent chemist William Lindsey was cut short. Judge Ronald
Thomas did allow the defense more freedom, but at the outset of the trial, he
made a decision, at the request of the prosecution, that would tie the hands of
the jury. The Zündel Trials (1985 and 1988) by ROBERT
FAURISSON
Judge Ronald Thomas began to label Leuchter's methodology as "ridiculous" and
"preposterous", dismissing many of the report's conclusions on the basis that
they were based on "second-hand information", and refused to allow him to
testify on the effect of Zyklon B on humans because he had never worked with the
substance, and was neither a toxicologist nor a chemist. Mr. Thomas dismissed
Leuchter's opinion because it was of "no greater value than that of an ordinary
tourist", and in regards to Leuchter's opinion said:
“THE COURT: His opinion on this report is that there were never any
gassings or there was never any exterminations carried on in this facility. As
far as I am concerned, from what I've heard, he is not capable of giving that
opinion....He is not in a position to say, as he said so sweepingly in this
report, what could not have been carried on in these facilities.”
—Judge Thomas, Her Majesty the Queen vs. Ernst Zündel, District Court of
Ontario 1988, p. 9049-9050.
When questioned on the functioning
of the crematoria, the judge also prevented Leuchter from testifying because "he
hasn't any expertise". [Wikipedia. See:
Wikipedia]
In Anglo-Saxon law, everything must be proved except for certain absolutely
indisputable evidence ("The capital of Great Britain is London," "day follows
night"... ) The judge can take "judicial notice" of that kind of evidence at the
request of one or the other of the contending parties;
Prosecuting Attorney John Pearson asked the judge to take judicial notice of
the Holocaust. That term then has to be defined. It is likely that, had it not
been for the intervention of the defense, the judge could have defined the
Holocaust as it might have been defined in 1945/46. At that time, the "genocide
of the Jews" (the word "Holocaust" was not used) could have been defined as "the
ordered and planned destruction of six million Jews, in particular by the use of
gas chambers."
The problem for the prosecution was that the defense advised the judge that,
since 1945/46, there have been profound changes in the understanding of Exterminationist historians about the extermination of the Jews. First of all,
they no longer talk about an extermination but about an attempted
extermination.. They have also finally admitted that "in spite of the most
scholarly research" (Raymond Aron, Sorbonne Convenffon, 2 July 1982), no one has
found any trace of an order to exterminate the Jews. More recently, there has
been a dispute between the "intentionalists" and the "functionalists." Both
agree that they have no proof of any intent to exterminate, but "intentionalist"
historians nevertheless believe that one must assume the existence of that
intent, while "functionalist" historians believe that the extermination was the
result of individual initiatives, localized and anarchic: in a sense, the
activity created the organization! Finally, the figure of six million was
declared to be "symbolic" and there have been many disagreements about the
"problem of the gas chambers."
Obviously surprised by this flood of information, Judge Ronald Thomas decided
to be prudent and, after a delay for reflection, decided on the following
definition; the Holocaust, he said, was "the extermination and/or mass-murder of
Jews" by National Socialism. His definition is remarkable for more than one
reason. We no longer find any trace of an extermination order, or a plan, or
"gas chambers," or six million Jews or even millions of Jews. This definition is
so void of all substance that it no longer corresponds to anything real. One
cannot understand the meaning of "mass-murder of Jews." (The judge carefully
avoided saying "of the Jews".) This strange definition is itself a sign of the
progress achieved by Historical Revisionism since 1945.
The Zündel Trials (1985 and 1988) by ROBERT
FAURISSON
Judge Thomas' Judicial Notice
The 'False News' Trial of Ernst Zündel -- 1988
District Court Judge Ron Thomas
Prior to the commencement of the trial, Crown Attorney John Pearson requested
presiding Judge Ron Thomas to take judicial notice of the historical fact that
during the Second World War, the National Socialist regime of Adolf Hitler
pursued a policy which had as its goal the extermination of the Jews of Europe.
Thomas granted the application in the following terms:
"It is my respectful view that the
court should take judicial notice of the Holocaust having regard to all of the
circumstances. The mass murder and extermination of Jews of Europe by the Nazi
regime during the Second World War is so notorious as not to be the subject of
dispute among reasonable persons. Furthermore, it is my view that the Holocaust
is capable of immediate accurate demonstration by resort to readily accessible
sources of indisputable accuracy. But I emphasize the ground upon which I hold
that the court should take judicial notice of the Holocaust is that it is so
notorious as to be not the subject of dispute among reasonable persons ... The
Holocaust is the mass murder and extermination of Jews by the Nazi regime during
the Second World War, and the jury will be told to take judicial notice of that."
As a result, the jury in the Zündel
trial was directed that it was required to accept as a fact that the
"Holocaust", as defined by Thomas, actually occurred.
http://www.ihr.org/books/kulaszka/06thomas.html