Holocaust trial judges

Holocaust trial judges
[back] Holocaust [back] Judge watch Judge Hugh Locke

[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; Sir Charles Gray
    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}

Germar Rudolph critique of the Judgement of Justice Gray

The Picture of Judge Gray By George Brewer

Sir Charles Gray is a British judge (Mr. Justice Gray), who presided over the trial of David Irving's libel lawsuit against Professor Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin Books over claims that he was a holocaust denier and who delivered judgement against Irving.

David Irving responds
my short book on my 2005 arrest, trial and imprisonment

Professor Richard J Evans Richard Evans
EVANS was one of the neutral "expert witnesses" expensively (£250,000) hired by Prof Deborah Lipstadt and her publisher to testify as to Mr Irving's worth as an historian during the libel action against her. After spending 20 man-years searching Mr Irving's thirty works, Evans and his team wrote a report charging that the author had made 19 errors (e.g., he had misread a five-letter word in Himmler's handwriting). In a remarkably hostile judgment, Mr Justice Gray reduced even that figure to twelve.]