- [Devin] Thanks to Audible for keeping LegalEagle in the air. - Take off the robes, please. (attendees laughs) - Yeah, so, it is absolutely true that they wore judicial robes, trying to get the ire of Judge Hoffman. In response, the judge did, in fact, issue contempt citations against them. (whimsical music) Hey, Legal Eagles, it's
time to think like a lawyer, and today, we are covering
"The Trial of the Chicago 7," which was written and
directed by Aaron Sorkin. Believe it or not, this
is actually a new movie. And not only is it a new movie,
but it's a new legal movie. It's like the before times. So I'm really excited to
take a look at this movie that involves one of the most
famous trials in the 1960s. And yeah, let's get to it. (tense music) - December 30th. - [Man] All those whose
birthday falls on December 30th. - [Reporter] President Johnson announcing new monthly draft totals
increasing to 35,000. - 43,000 per month.
- 51,000. - Yeah, it's interesting that,
in the public consciousness, for some reason in modern times, maybe it's just me, but I
think we tend to associate the Vietnam War with Richard Nixon, but for the most part, it was Johnson who really escalated things in Vietnam and instituted the draft. Later on, I assume we're gonna get to the actual protests themselves. Everyone's protesting Johnson
and the Democratic nominees because they were the ones
that were largely responsible for the escalation in Vietnam and that's why everyone got arrested. Eventually, Nixon comes
in as this president that's going to withdraw from Vietnam, which he eventually
does in his second term, but for the most part, the
Democrats were the party that were pro-Vietnam at the time. - If America's soul
becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read, "Vietnam." (gun bangs) - What we need in the
United States is not hatred, but is love and wisdom. So I ask you tonight to return home, to say a prayer for the
family of Martin Luther King. (gun bangs) (crowd screams) - Yeah, it's also easy to forget that Martin Luther King and
Robert Kennedy were shot just months apart from each other. And Kennedy was shot right
around the time that he won. I think it was the day that
he won the California primary for the Democratic nomination. And it's one of the great
counterfactuals in the world to think about what would've happened if Robert Kennedy had won
the Democratic nomination if he hadn't been
assassinated before that. When we get to the protests
and the trial itself, eventually Hubert Humphreys
is the one that's nominated for the Democratic
nomination for president and he wasn't an anti-war protest. Historians think that, if Humphreys had been an
anti=war candidate in 1968, that he would have beaten Richard Nixon. But he wasn't and he lost. - Section 2101, Title 18. That's the federal law that was broken. - That's the Rap Brown Law. - In conspiracy to cross state lines in order to incite violence. - Okay.
- It's a maximum of 10 years. We want all 10. - For whom, sir? - The all-star team. (file thumps) - Okay, so this is really interesting, and I think this is kind
of a throwaway line. Schultz here, who is the prosecutor, talks about the H. Rap Brown Law. H. Rap Brown was the chairman of the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee. In 1967, he gave a speech
to a few dozen people in Cambridge, Maryland,
and the quote that he said was something like, "It's
time for Cambridge to explode. We're gonna have to burn America down." And then the group of people exchanged gunfire with the police and it's sort of an open
question who started that. The H. Rap Brown Law was a law that was introduced by Strom
Thurmond, who is notorious for being a sort of racist
senator from the South. When the Civil Rights Act 1968 was passed or was attempted to be passed, there was obviously
quite a lot of pushback. At the time, there was
a lot of white fright, not only people protesting the war, but also what people saw
as outside agitators. And it was a law that was
meant to prevent people from coming out of state and
basically inciting violence. Often, when you're
dealing with federal laws, the way that you overcome the commerce clause of the US Constitution and allow Congress to
actually legislate something is you say that, when
you come out of state or you cross state lines, then
that's when the law applies. In order to pass the civil rights law along with, I think it was a housing bill, they had to be passed with this rider that was added by Strom Thurmond. This was 1969 at the time. No one had ever used this law and it was clearly passed
for political reasons. The fact that Bobby
Seale, the Black Panther, was even included in this group of people that actually organized
the protests in 1968, that was politicized. The law that they were prosecuted under was completely politicized. It was... It's as close as America
has really ever come to a political show trial. - [Protesters] The
whole world is watching! The whole world is watching! The whole world is watching! The whole world is watching!
- Lock up the longhairs! - [Protesters] The
whole world is watching! The whole world is watching! The whole world is watching! The whole world is watching!
- Okay, so a couple things. Here, the movie's telling
us this is District Court, so it's a federal courthouse
because, like I said, we're dealing with a federal law here. This was the H. Rap
Brown Anti-Rioting Act. On top of it, the chant
that they're chanting here, I don't know if that
continued into the trial, but famously, when the police
cracked down on the protestors at the Democratic Convention,
the protesters themselves, as they were basically
being beaten by the police, were chanting, "The
whole world is watching. The whole world is watching." - [Protesters] The
whole world is watching! - [Woman] Fine, if you
want the street, take it! - I assume that that probably continued on even after the protest itself, but that chant famously originated with the protests themselves. - I want you all to meet a new
addition to the defense team. This is Leonard Weinglass,
one of this country's most talented First Amendment litigators. - Bill, can you tell us the status of-
- Go ahead, Sy. - Can you tell us the
status of Charles Garry? - Charles Garry is still in the hospital. You should contact his
office for information. Uh, Marjorie. - Does that mean you're
representing Bobby Seale today? - Oh, no, it's very important
that it be understood that, for his own protection,
his own protection, I will not be acting as
Bobby Seale's attorney today. - All right, so they're hinting at a whole bunch of different things here. Number one is that Kunstler and Weinglass were the main trial
counsel for the Chicago 7, but also, there were dozens of lawyers that were involved here. It was not just these two guys. And they're hinting that a man named Charles
Garry is not present. This is a famous episode
in federal litigation where a lot of the
members of the Chicago 7, they were really the Chicago
8 if you include Bobby Seale, wanted Charles Garry, a famous
litigator, to represent them. In particular, Bobby
Seale, the Black Panther, wanted Charles Garry to represent him. And he was in the hospital because he needed gallbladder surgery, so he was literally in a hospital bed. And so it was a huge question as to who was representing
whom at the start of the trial. - I understand why they're trying to smoke Abbie, Jerry, and Hayden, even Rennie and Dellinger,
but for the life of me, I can't figure out what the
two of us are doing here. - I feel exactly the same way. But this is the Academy
Awards of protests, and as far as I'm concerned, it's an honor just to be nominated. - Okay, this hints at something else that's probably kind of important, is that, because this
is kind of a show trial and very politicized, the
prosecutors were cramming a whole bunch of disparate groups into the defense table here. You had the Yippies that
were led by Abbie Hoffman, who thought this was all kind of a joke. You have the SDS, by Tom Hayden, who were very, very anti-war. You have these local
guys, Weiner and Froines, who were not nationally known figures. They were just involved
in the local planning, but not really the
overarching national campaign. You've got Bobby Seale, who's the head of the Black Panthers at this point. And then you have David Dellinger, who I think is involved with the MOBE, the, like, student
mobilization against the war. And they're all on trial for
a conspiracy to create a riot. Weiner and Froines were
completely the odd men out. And it's sort of crazy
that all of these people were prosecuted at the same time when they couldn't have less
to do with each other, really. They barely agreed that everyone should be
against the Vietnam War. But that's kind of where
all the cooperation ended. - [Bailiff] All rise. - Hmm, okay. So, if this is actually the
start of the trial itself, if we're done with the pre-trial stuff, then at this point, it was
already sort of a circus and most, if not all of the defendants, refused to stand to recognize the judge, which was actually a subject of a lot of the contempt charges that Judge Julius Hoffman would hand down to a bunch of the defendants, especially the Yippies,
with Abbie Hoffman, were absolutely dead set on making thing as wild, as much like a circus, and showing the least
amount of respect possible. - Move to reinstate testimony. - [Defendants] Overruled. - Among the many things that they did, they refused to stand for
large portions of the trial. - 69CR180, United States of America versus David Dellinger, Rennard
C. Davis, Thomas Hayden, Abbot Hoffman, Jerry C. Rubin, Lee Weiner, John R. Froines, and
Bobby G. Seale for trial. - Are the People ready to
make opening arguments? - We are, Your Honor. - I don't have my lawyer here. - It's not your turn to speak. - My trial's begun without my lawyer. - Okay. So that's Bobby Seale,
the famous Black Panther. And they're compressing a lot of stuff into this statement here because we haven't even been able to see the pre-trial stuff that
happened before the court. A lot of stuff that
happens in motion practice, between counsel and the judge,
and you're choosing the jury. There's so many things that
goes into the pre-trial. And here, it was a huge, huge issue about who represented Bobby Seale. By the time that the trial starts, several of the pre-trial lawyers have already been held in contempt and Judge Hoffman has sent
them to jail without bail, which caused over a 100 lawyers
to write an amicus brief, where you're just writing a
brief as a friend of the court. You're not someone that is actually, has a vested interest in the trial itself. But hundreds of lawyers
wrote in to the judge and said, "This is crazy. Why are you jailing the lawyers
for the defendants here?" And so it was a complete open question as to who represented Bobby Seale. William Kunstler, the main trial
counsel for the defendants, explicitly said he was
not representing Seale. - Mr. Seale is here without
legal representation. - I don't care for your general tone. - Arguably, Seale was
completely unrepresented for most of this trial
and was vociferously disputing the fact that
they were moving forward without someone representing him. I mean, this is part of the whole mess that led to the circus-like
atmosphere of this trial. It was crazy. - Mr. Schultz. - Good morning. My name is Richard Schultz. I'm an Assistant US Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois. - All right, classic trope, entering the well without permission and going right up to the jury box. You have to ask for permission or, obviously, the
bailiff will tackle you. There's actually one real life exchange that was in the transcript that didn't make it into the
movie that touches on this. So William Kunstler is
the main defense lawyer, and he was at the lectern,
but he was sort of leaning on the lecture, kind of at
the side of the lectern, and Judge Hoffman basically yelled at him, saying that Mies van der
Rohe designed the lectern, who's a famous architect,
and it's not allowed to even lean on it. It's disrespectful. Really, in this movie, we
see the tip of the iceberg in terms of the judge's animosity towards, not only the defense
counsel, but also the idea that he was somehow racist
for chastising Bobby Seale and that he was constantly
the butt of the joke. Anytime there was laughter, he basically issued a contempt citation to the defense counsel
and he was always worried that people were laughing at him and he was always worried that
people thought he was racist and he went out of his way,
in sort of a racist way, to say that he wasn't racist. And he kept saying, you know,
"I've got black friends." I mean, it was just really,
really obvious stuff, where he was trying to make a point to show that he wasn't racist, and yet, demonstrating that he was
at least mildly racist for the time. - Mr. Schultz. - The radical left, that's all. They're the radical left
in different costumes. - That's probably improper
for an opening statement. - These defendants had a plan, and a plan among two or
more people is a conspiracy. The defendants crossed state
lines to execute their plan. That's why we're in federal court. And the plan was to incite a riot. And there's one thing you already know. They succeeded. - Yeah, so there was a riot. There's no doubt about that. But several investigations
showed that it was the police that started the riot. There was a congressional or Illinois state investigative report called the Walker Report
that basically concluded that it was the police,
not the protesters, who started the riot in 1968. And it's interesting
because, here, there are two separate types of
charges for the most part. One is a conspiracy charge
to cross state lines to create a riot. The other charges were
just sort of general incitement to riot charges that, regardless of whether there
was a plan or conspiracy, that they did cause a riot to happen. And the reason that you can
charge all these people together and try them together
is the conspiracy charge because, generally,
defendants have a right to their own trial. But when the government
alleges a conspiracy, then you can lump them all together and it's much easier to use statements to show a plan amongst
this group of people, which didn't really exist. They are a really
disparate group of people that, yes, got together for this protest or what they called a love-in,
but it's very unlikely that there was any kind
of thought-out plan to actually incite a riot ahead of time. - Your Honor, I'm not with these guys. I never even met most of
them until the indictment. (gavel pounds) - We will have order.
- You got eight of us here and there're signs out there
- We'll have order. - that read "Free the Chicago 7." I'm not with them. - Mr. Marshall,
- This man says conspiracy. - will you seat Mr. Seale?
- I never even met most of 'em until the indictment. And speaking frankly, the US Attorney wanted a negro defendant
to scare the jury. I was thrown in to make
the group look scarier. I came to Chicago,
(gavel pounds repeatedly) I made a speech, - Mr. Seale-
- I had chicken pot pie, went to the airport and
I flew back to Oakland, and that's why they call it the Chicago... Get your hands off me.
(gavel pounds repeatedly) - Charge Mr. Seale with one
count of contempt of court. - So, contempt of court, it
was a huge issue in this trial. By the end of the trial, there were 175 different
counts of contempt. And between four of the
defendants and two of the lawyers, some people were sentenced to
more than four years in jail as a result of the contempt violations that the judge handed down. I mean, it's crazy that that
people would be sentenced to four years in jail
for contempt of court for things that happened in
court, not even the things that they were alleged to
have done outside of court. Again, it contributed to this idea that this was a political show trial. Rumors were that the prosecutors really, really wanted
to get Judge Hoffman, and they were ecstatic
when they did get him because he was just
bringing down the hammer on all of these different defendants. So the question is: What do you do if you're the defense counsel
and the judge hates you and is really taking it
out on you and your client? Really, William Kunstler probably should be the star of this show because this movie is only
the tip of the iceberg in terms of how much the
judge really hated Kunstler and the rest of the defendants. Kunstler was fighting back
for months and months, and as a result, he was issued
dozens of contempt citations along with the defendants themselves. The only thing that you can
do is just set your record. You know that lot of these
rulings are not gonna stand, that you're gonna be able to appeal it, and if the judge is poisoning the well, then you just keep setting the record. You make your objections, you state your grounds
for the the objections, so that, when the trial is over and if there is a conviction, you can go to the court of appeals and point to these things. Frankly, this movie doesn't show just how far Kunstler was
willing to go to fight this judge who absolutely hated him and his clients. - What are you wearing? - It's an homage to you, Your Honor. - Do you have clothes underneath there? - Yes. Hold on. Yes. - Take off the robes, please. (attendees laugh) - Yeah, so this was one of the many antics that Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin pulled during the course of this trial. It is absolutely true that
they wore judicial robes, trying to get the ire of Judge Hoffman. They were not wearing
police uniforms underneath, but in response to wearing
those robes, the judge did, in fact, issue contempt
citations against them. - Did you issue the permits? - No, I did not. - And what, if anything,
did Abbie Hoffman say when you denied the
request for the permit. - Mr. Stahl, you need
to understand something. There's gonna be a Festival
of Life in Grant Park and it will be held during the convention. Bands will play rock music. There will be public fornication, likely some of it with the wives and mistresses of delegates. Psychedelic, long-haired leftists will consort with dope users. And we're gonna insist that the next president
of the United States stop sending our friends
to be slaughtered. These things are gonna happen whether you give us the permit or not. - The hotels will be
filled with delegates. Where will people sleep? - Some people will sleep in tents. Others will live frivolously. - Well how many people are coming here? - A lot. - What's a lot? 1,000? 2,000? - 10,000. - Jesus Christ. - Right? (Devin chuckles) - So, the permit issue
was a really big deal because this is a really weird trial in terms of the evidence
that was presented and allowed to be presented. You're trying to show that
there was this conspiracy ahead of time to cause a
riot, to incite violence. So a lot of what these
defendants said and did goes to whether there was
a plan to create violence or rioting before it actually happened. And you can imagine that
permitting is a big issue here. There's a lot of people, a
lot of historians that think that, if the permits had been granted, they would have had things like
sanitation and electricity. And the bands that they
had lined up to play would've had a PA system, which could have calmed the crowd down. And of course, the permits were rejected. - He said, "We must understand
that, as we go forth to try to move the reprobate politicians, - Your Honor?
- our cowardly Congress that jive, double-lip talk - Jive, double-lip talk
- and Nixon. - and Nixon. You make me sound like one funky cat. Thank you, sir. - Last warning, Mr. Seale. - Did he say anything else? - He said, "The revolution at this time is directly connected to
organized guns in force." - No more questions. - Jive, double-lip talkin'. Funky, funky cat. - Would the defense like to
cross-examine the witness? - Yes. I'm sitting here saying that I would like to
cross-examine the witness. - Only lawyers can address the witness.
- My lawyer is Charles Garry. - I'm tired of hearing that. - Couldn't care less what you're tired of. - What did you say? - I said it would be impossible for me to care any less what you are tired of and I demand to cross-examine the witness. - Sit in your chair and be quiet and don't ever address this
court in that manner again. - So this incident actually happened. This is one of the more infamous incidents in litigation history around this time. It actually happened earlier. It was not related to the
death of Fred Hampton, but obviously, Bobby Seale wanted a lawyer and the court wasn't allowing him to have his counsel of choice. After a number of disruptions, Judge Hoffman really did put Bobby Seale in chains, bound and gagged. And what's not portrayed in this movie is that it wasn't an isolated incident, but he stayed in chains for days. You can imagine that the
other defendants were pissed. The jury's sort of tainted at this point. This could've been its own movie. It sort of gets short shrift
in this particular movie, but it actually happened and
it's not a shining moment for the judicial system. - State your name. - [Ramsey] William Ramsey Clark. - [Bailiff] Do you swear
that the testimony you give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? - [Ramsey] I do. - You would think that
this was pure movie magic. It's made up that they were able to call the former attorney general
for the United States to be a witness in the trial. It actually happened. Interestingly, what this movie portrays, that the questions are asked, he gives great answers for the defense about the political nature of this trial, and the judge does exclude the testimony. The jury never got to hear
the testimony of Ramsey Clark. This is interesting because,
generally, you would think that what another police department did or, in this case, the
attorney general's office did isn't really probative
or relevant to the idea that these people are guilty or not. But there is a defense of being singled out
for political reasons, and I assume that that would've been an affirmative defense
in this particular case. What actually happens is that, while Ramsey Clark did not
get to testify in this trial, eventually, after the
appeal and a retrial, he was able to testify later on. He testified, but the
jury never got to hear it. It's interesting what
they're not showing here because there were hundreds of witnesses. And because of the defendants'
states of mind were at issue, they called a whole bunch of people who participated in the protest, witnesses like Alan Ginsburg, the poet, Dick Gregory, the comedian, folk singers, Timothy Leary, the Harvard professor who was famous for experimenting with LSD. The testimony that they gave was insane. People sang songs. They chanted in the
middle of the courtroom. And this was the testimony in
front of the judge and jury. This was a bonkers trial
from start to finish. (whimsical music) All right. Now it's time to give "The
Trial of the Chicago 7" a grade for legal realism. (gavel pounds) On the one hand, a lot of the dialogue that's in this movie is almost verbatim from the trial transcripts of
things that actually happened. And sure, they're condensing things to fit it into a two-hour movie,
but it seems like they got a lot of the period details correct. On the other hand, there
are a few movie tropes, moving around the well,
but for the most part, this is a pretty accurate movie, both from the legal perspective and the historical perspective as well. So I'll give "The Trial of the Chicago 7" an A- for accuracy. This is about as accurate as
you'll get for a two-hour movie condensing six months worth of trial. To prepare for this review, I read tons of books and court pleadings, but one of my favorite things was listening to amazing voice actors read the most exciting excerpts from the trial transcript on Audible in "The Trial of the Chicago
7: The Official Transcript." The amazing cast includes
Jeff Daniels, Luke Kirby, and J.K. Simmons who plays Judge Hoffman and is completely terrifying. I got federal court PTSD
just from listening to him. And while the movie is good, the reenactment on Audible is even better because truth is stranger than fiction. The movie just couldn't do justice as to how many crazy
things actually happened in the trial and how
heated the arguments were between Kunstler and Judge Hoffman. Trust me, the audiobook is fantastic. It's better than a John Grisham novel. I use Audible almost every day. It's by far the best source
of audio entertainment. And they recently launched a
new plan called Audible Plus that gives you full access
to their Plus catalog, which is filled with
thousands and thousands of select originals,
audiobooks, podcasts, workouts, and even guided meditations. And now is the best
time to try Audible Plus because, with their holiday offer, it's only 4.95 a month
for the first six months, and after that, it's only 7.95 a month to download and stream their
thousands of audiobooks and originals in the Plus catalog. And with Audio Plus, you can download or stream without limit. Just go to Audible.com/LegalEagle or text LegalEagle to 500500. And be sure to check out
the audiobook version of the real life trial of the Chicago 7. Again, just go to Audible.com/LegalEagle to get the holiday offer on Audible Plus. Plus, clicking on the
link in the description really helps out this channel. So, do you agree with my analysis? Leave your objections in the comments and check out this playlist over here with all of my real lawyer reactions, including "Legally
Blonde" and "Liar, Liar." So just click on this playlist
and I'll see you in court.
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