Conspiracy: The Trial of the Chicago 8 (1987) - full transcript

(gentle music)

(bombs exploding)

("For What It's Worth")

♪ There's something happening here ♪

♪ What it is ain't exactly clear ♪

♪ There's a man with a gun over there ♪

♪ Telling me I got to beware ♪

- [Man] This is an unlawful assembly.

You must disperse immediately.

(crowd chattering)
(gentle music)

(glass shattering)
(woman screaming)



♪ There's battle lines being drawn ♪

♪ Nobody's right if everybody's wrong ♪

♪ Young people speaking their minds ♪

♪ Getting so much resistance from behind ♪

♪ It's time we stop,
hey, what's that sound ♪

Everybody look what's going down

- All rise.

United States district court
for the northern district

of Illinois now is in session.

The honorable Judge Julius
J. Hoffman presiding.

- Ladies and gentleman of
the jury, good morning.

- 69 CR 180, the United States of America

versus David Dellinger, et al for trial.

- Your mayor proud to welcome
a great political gathering



of Americans will come here

to shape the future of the nation

and as long as I'm mayor of this town,

there will be law and order in Chicago.

(crowd cheering)

- Mr. Schultz representing the government.

- The government, ladies
and gentlemen of the jury,

will prove in this case an overall plan

of the eight defendants to
encourage numerous people

to come to the city of Chicago

during the Democratic National Convention,

which was held from August
26th through August 29th, 1968.

They planned to bring
these people into Chicago

to create a situation where
these people would riot.

The government will prove
that David Dellinger.

- Well, I was described
as an antiwar activist

or a pacifist leader and today
I'm called a peace activist,

but I don't like any of those terms

because I think you can't
have peace without justice.

- The defendant Renard Davis.

- I came out of a very conservative family

that very much believed
in American values.

I would say I was a full
time activist, you know,

with a passion to end the war in Vietnam.

- Next to him, Thomas Hayden.

Who is standing.

- Who is the last defendant you named?

- Mr. Hayden.

- The one that shook his fist
in the direction of the jury?

- That's my customary
greeting, your honor.

- It may be your customary greeting,

but we do not allow shaking
your fist in this courtroom.

- It implied no disrespect to the jury.

It is my customary greeting.

- Irregardless of what it implies, sir,

there will be no fist shaking

and I caution you not to repeat it.

- I began as a innocent
enough idealistic reformer,

a student editor, a person
that believed in civil rights.

I had been a founder
and an early president

of students for democratic society.

- May I proceed, your honor?

- Yes, Mr. Schultz, yes.

- And promoting and encouraging this riot,

the defendants Dellinger, Davis and Hayden

joined with five other defendants

to create the riots in
Chicago during the convention.

The defendant Abbott Hoffman.

- The jury is directed to
disregard the kiss thrown

by the defendant Hoffman and
the defendant is directed

not to do that sort of thing again.

- But here we were
growing up in the late 50s

with the whole idea of material success.

The designer brain mentality.

We could have credit cards if we wanted.

We could have good paying jobs.

We didn't have to worry about
keeping up with Mr. Jones

'cause we were Mr. Jones.

And we said no to that primetime culture.

We just said chuck it.

We just said it's boring.

It's spiritually unrewarding.

And it's unjust for people
too poor to participate in.

Now they couldn't understand that at all.

- And with him, a man named Jerry Rubin.

- I was writing books at the time.

I was a political activist.

My job full time was
inspiring young people

to think for themselves,
to resist authority,

and to create a new social
order in the United States.

That's how I saw myself.

- These men call themselves
leaders of the yippie.

Two more of these
individuals are Lee Wiener.

- Wiener.

- I had a master's degree in sociology

and I was just about finished

with my doctorate in sociology.

Being nothing more than a
nice middle class Jewish boy

doing what his parents grew him up to be,

which is speaking for himself

and for helping other
people secure their rights.

- And John Froines.

- I was an assistant
professor of chemistry

at the University of Oregon.

At the same time, I was
a political activist.

A social activist.

- And the eighth person,
the last person who joined

is a man named Bobby Seale.

- Huey P. Newton and I created

and founded an organization
called the Black Panther party.

We talking about full
employment for our people.

The power to determine our own destiny

in our own black community.

- The government will prove
the defendants Dellinger,

Davis, Hayden, Hoffman, Rubin

and Seale traveled across
state lines through Chicago

with intent to organize, to
insight, and to promote a riot.

And the government will
prove the defendant Froines

and Weiner taught and
demonstrated to other people,

the use and making of incendiary devices

to be used to further this disorder.

The government will prove each

of these defendants guilty as charged.

Thank you.

- Voices of angry protest are
heard throughout the land,

crying for all manner of freedoms.

- Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,

my name is William Kunstler.

I'm an attorney from the city of New York

and I'm one of the attorneys on this case.

We hope to prove before
you that this prosecution,

which you are hearing is
the result of two motives

on the part of the government.

- Objection.

Is there any motives of
prosecution of the court?

- Your honor, it is a proper
defense to show motive.

- I sustain the objection.

You may speak to the guilt
or innocent to your clients,

not to the motive of the government.

- Your honor, I always
thought that to show motive--

- I sustained the objection

regardless of what you've
always thought, Mr. Kunstler.

- The evidence will show
that the defendants,

like many other citizens
of the United States,

came to protest in the
finest American tradition.

They came to Chicago to
protest the continuation

of this bloody and unjustified war.

The evidence will show that
there were forces in this city

and in the national government

who are absolutely determined
to prevent this protest.

What actually happened in
the streets of Chicago,

not a riot caused by demonstrators,

but a riot engineered by the police.

Before you is a classic example

of government against people

of their rights violated by Billy clubs.

We will demonstrate that free speech

died here in the streets under those clubs

and at the bodies of the demonstrators

was sacrifices to its death.

- Objection, your honor.

- I sustain the objection.

I direct the jury to
disregard the last statement

of the counsel for the defense.

- Thank you ladies and gentlemen.

- Is there any other defense lawyer

who wishes to make an opening statement?

I take it that you're standing
there means yes you do, Mr.

Mr. Weinglass.

- Yes, your honor.

That is correct.

If your honor, please.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,

Mr. Kunstler indicated that
persons who came to Chicago

felt a moral anguish
at what they considered

to be wrongful conduct of this country.

It was another group of
people who came to Chicago,

not for the purpose of protesting,

but for the purpose of showing the public

and the leaders and the
rulers of this country

that there was emerging a new culture.

This group generally
called Yippies came here

for a conclave to be known
as the festival of life.

They had invited a number of rock bands

relevant to the youth culture.

I do not ask you to accept or like,

or agree with any of the speeches,

which my clients might've given.

- Your honor, I object.

Counsel argues the case.

It is improper.

- I sustain the objection.

- So I ask you to keep an open mind

and to await before making your judgment.

Thank you.

- Does any other defense lawyer wish

to make an opening statement?

Just a minute, sir.

Who is your lawyer?

- Charles. R. Gary.

- Bobby Seale was in jail
pending a murder trial

in Connecticut where he was
supposed to be a defendant

and which later exonerated him.

- Now, Bobby's lawyer is Charles Gary

and Charles was having a
medical operation at the time.

- The man had been cut open.

I mean, how's he gonna come to trial?

All we needed was a little postponement.

You know what I mean?

Like two, three, four weeks
and something like that.

Judge wasn't gonna do that.

Later for that.

- Mr. Kunstler, do you
represent Mr. Seale?

- No, your honor.

As far as Mr. Seale has indicated to me

that because of the absence
of Charles R. Gary--

- Have you filed his appearance?

- I have filed an appearance
for Mr. Seale, yes.

- All right.

I will permit you to make
another opening statement

on behalf of Mr. Seale if you like.

I will not permit a party in the case to--

- Your honor, I cannot
compromise Mr. Seale's position.

- I don't ask you to compromise it, sir,

but I will not permit
him to address the jury

with his very competent
lawyers standing there.

- [Foran] At a meeting on
August 8th, 1968, who said what?

- Mr. Hoffman said he wanted the mayor

to grant a permit for use of Lincoln Park.

They wanted to use the park to sleep in.

I said that the mayor had no authority

over the park district.

- Now calling your attention
to August 21st, 1968.

What brought you to the
courtroom of Judge William Lynch?

- There was a lawsuit filed

by the national mobilization committee

to end the war and by Mr. Rennie Davis,

Tom Hayden and others
against the city of Chicago.

I said that the city was predisposed

to issue a permit for a march

if Mr. Davis was willing to
accept a reasonable proposal.

- What happened then?

- Well, Mr. Davis said
that he wanted to meet

with an eyesight of the amphitheater.

I pointed out no one was
permitted in that area

because of security
precautions for the convention.

He said if the city
wants to avoid violence,

you should take all the police

and guardsmen away from the amphitheater.

That it was his experience

that the police actually caused violence.

He also said that his members

couldn't really be housed
in hotel accommodations.

That many of them didn't have money.

He said that if the city
doesn't give us the park,

there will be tens of thousands of people

without a place to stay and
they will go into the parks

and the police will drive them out

and there'll be disorder,
tear gas, mace, Billy clubs.

- With respect to the law,

which does not permit staying
in the park beyond 11,

was that requirement
waived for the Boy Scouts?

- Apparently, yes.

- But don't you think
it would have been wiser

to let the kids sleep in the park?

- I was told by Abbie Hoffman
that during the convention

there would be 500,000 young people

attending the festival of life.

Mr. Rubin said, they'd be holding classes

in defense against the police.

Abbie Hoffman said he was
prepared to tear up our town

and that if we were smart, we the city,

we would give them $100,000.

Or better still give him
100,000 and he would leave town.

- I said 200,000.

- This festival would include, he said,

body painting, nude ins at the
beaches, public fornication,

discussion of the draft,
and draft invasion.

- Your honor, at this time I would like

to offer evidence with respect

to the defendant Dellinger only.

- Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,

the testimony the witness is about to give

is offered only with respect
to the defendant Derringer.

- I think your honor means Dellinger.

- Dellinger.

That's right.

- Mr. Dellinger said we must issue--

- I'm going to get back
to you, Mr. witness.

I mispronounced the defendant's name.

You said Dillinger.

It's Derringer.

We were both wrong.

You mean Mr. Derringer, do you not?

- Dellinger.

Dellinger.

- Said that it was necessary
that we issue a permit

for sleeping in Lincoln Park

in order to minimize destruction.

- Now, if my understanding is correct,

all your meetings with Jerry and Abbie

took place in city hall.

- Your honor, I object to the
reference to these two little.

To Abbie and Jerry.

Let's call the defendants
by their proper names.

- I agree.

- Now you testified in your meeting

with Jerry Rubin and Abbie
Hoffman some mention of $100,000.

Is that correct?

- Yes, that is correct.

- Did you take that discussion seriously?

- Yes, I most certainly did.

- Now in your meeting with Rennie and Tom.

- Oh your honor, here we go again.

Another 29 year old being Rennie baby.

- I object to that, your honor.

Would you direct the jury

to disregard the Rennie baby remark?

It's unfounded.

- If the United States attorney
said that I certainly do.

Crowd the baby out of your minds.

We're not dealing with babies here.

- My mother, who's a Republican,
now 75 year old woman

sent me a five pound box of jellybeans.

- Jellybeans.

Jellybeans.

(audience cheering)

(gavel pounding)

- [Bailiff] All rise.

The court is now in session.

- On Sunday evening I
observed a Jerry Rubin

in Lincoln Park pointing
at the police officers.

Then he began to shout.

He used some profanity.

- If profane words were spoken,

part of something an individual had said,

I think it's appropriate in
law that a witness so testify.

- He says, look at
these motherfucking pigs

standing over here.

Take off your guns and we'll
fight you hand to hand.

- I was assigned to follow Mr. Jerry Rubin

- During all this period,
did you ever see him throw

an object at another human being?

- Wednesday.

- Wednesday?

He threw an object?

- Yes.

He threw a sweater.

- At who?

- At me.

- I take it you were
uninjured by the sweater.

(audience laughing)

- I was dressed in a white
shirt, khaki pants and gym shoes.

Sneakers.

- Would you please relate
what the defendant Davis said

about civil disobedience

and the democratic national convention?

- He said they were going
to be demonstrations

and civil disobedience to
disrupt the convention.

- And neither mob violence

nor police brutality have any place.

- So the prosecution had the point of view

that we were international revolutionaries

and they bought on a parade of policemen.

- Among them were informants
who penetrated our ranks,

which wasn't very difficult to do

since we're a very casual organization.

- I submit to the court that
the right of persons to meet,

to assemble and to discuss
outstanding political,

social questions without
fear of intimidation

of police officers is paramount.

And to allow undercover
agents to attend the meetings

and make reports is a violation
of the first amendment,

of freedom of speech and assembly.

For that reason I ask

that the officer's testimony be stricken.

- Your honor, I object to their motion.

- We're opening up mail

and somebody opened the
wrong envelope quickly.

- And it was some very green marijuana.

Maybe about four ounces.

- [Julius] You approve
of your client laughing

while the court is making a decision?

- I didn't hear, your honor.

I was talking with Mr. Davis.

- You seem to be enjoying their laughter

because you smiled yourself.

- A smile is not forbidden

in federal court, I think your honor.

I think I ought to put on record

that Mr. Davis complemented Mr. Foran

on making a good point.

- Motion will be denied.

And as long as you were
putting things on the record,

I think I will put on the record

the posture of one of your clients.

This is the United States district court.

Have a look at him lying down
there like he's on the ground.

- May reflect his attitude toward

what is going on in this courtroom.

- Oh, I think it does.

I think it does reflect his attitude.

- Then it is free speech.

- And that attitude will be
appropriately dealt with.

- [Audience] Boo.

- Again three marshalls back there

deal with those comments.

- Hey man.

(audience chattering)

♪ So easy to sleep ♪

♪ People everywhere just wanna be free ♪

♪ Listen, please listen ♪

♪ That's the way it should be ♪

♪ There's peace in the valley ♪

♪ People got to be free ♪

- My assignment was an
undercover investigator.

- [Schultz] Did you in any way

alter your physical appearance

to conduct your assignment as
an undercover investigator?

- Yes, I did.

I allowed my hair to grow long.

I allowed myself to go without a shave

for approximately four to six weeks.

I purchased the attire of
a motorcycle gang member,

which is motorcycle
boots, a black tee shirt,

black Levi's and a black leather vest.

And I also rented a motorcycle.

- On Monday in Lincoln
Park who did you meet with?

- I was introduced to Abbie Hoffman

to be one of his bodyguards.

Hoffman shook my hand and said he was glad

to have me with him.

I said to Hoffman that
last night's confrontation

was a pretty good one.

And Hoffman said to me, they
pushed us out of the park,

but tonight we're gonna hold the park.

- What did you say when
Hoffman told you this, please?

- I told him he could count on me

in every way possible in helping him

and doing my best to keep
him from being arrested.

- Where'd you go then?

- Tom Hayden had been arrested
and a march was formed

to go to police
headquarters to free Hayden.

I was introduced by Jerry Rubin
as his personal bodyguard.

He was told I could be trusted.

Rubin said that it was too many pigs here.

Let's go to the Hilton.

So we went North on Michigan Avenue.

When the march was midpoint
past the Logan statue,

the crowd broke and ran up the statue

screaming take the Hill.

They climbed the statute and
displayed the Vietcong flag.

The red flag and the black flag.

Rubin said that this was
better than Iwo Jima.

I saw Rennie Davis with a
microphone saying hold the statue.

Don't let the pigs move you out

Rubin said we've got to do
more to keep the crowd active.

We want them in the park
for the Bobby Seale speech.

- I object on the grounds
of my lawyer is not here.

You know my lawyer is
not here, your honor,

and I want my lawyer here
when he mentions my name

and testifies against me.

- Ask him to sit down, Mr. Marshall.

- Sit down, Mr. Seale.

- Your honor, this little episode

for the benefit of the jury

is intended simply to misconstrue the fact

that this man originally had
four lawyers to begin with.

- In the speech Bobby
Seale said that the time

for singing "We Shall Overcome" is past

and now is the time to act, to go out,

and buy a 357 Magnum and
a 45 and kill the pigs.

Rubin began to yell kill
the pigs, kills the cops.

A man with a plastic bag said to Rubin,

I'm gonna fill this bag with human shit

and throw it at the pigs.

And Rubin laughed and said good.

It'll be good food for the pigs.

- [Schultz] Thank you, Mr. Pearson.

No further questions, your honor.

- When you heard Jerry Rubin speak,

was there any change in
the mood of the assemblage?

- Not that I noticed.

- [Weinglass] Did the group
become violent in any way?

- No, sir.

- Now, concerning Mr. Seale's speech,

was not the only reference
to killing the pigs

when he talked about self
defense against an unjust attack?

Isn't that the context?

- That's what you said, Mr. Weinglass.

That's not what I have said.

- The problem with the
trial from our point of view

was that we were being
diverted from our primary job.

Our primary job was to
organize antiwar activities.

- And we wanted to
participate very seriously

in the Vietnam moratorium.

- It may have been the
largest nationwide turnout

of Americans against any
war in American history.

- Yes.

Morning, troops.

- [All] Good morning, Abbie.

- [Bailiff] All rise.

- Hey, gentlemen.

- [Bailiff] The court is now in session.

The honorable judge, Julius
J. Hoffman presiding.

- Your honor, we have made a motion

for the suspension of
the trial for tomorrow.

It's been declared a day
called Vietnam Moratorium.

These men escaped Chicago

to protest this brutal imperialistic war.

They feel they are being
prosecuted for doing so.

I think it very fitting
for them to be permitted

to join the millions of
countrymen desire the same thing.

- Your honor, there's been
some evidence presented

that these men took part in a cynical plan

to use the tragic issue of the war

to tear down the formal structure

of the government of the United States.

Now many of us feel the tragedy of war,

especially some of us
who have fought in one

and that they should now ask to join

with maybe a sincere effort--

- Your honor, I think
these personal attacks

of the defendants are uncalled for.

I think they are making a fervent request

to protest the deaths of thousands,

millions of innocent people

whose lives have been corrupted

and prevented by the
utter horror that goes on

in your name and in my name.

- Not in my name.

- It is in your name, too.

The name of the United States.

- You just include yourself.

Don't join me with you.

Goodness.

Defendants motion for an
adjournment will be denied.

♪ War huh ♪

♪ Good God, y'all ♪

♪ What is it good for ♪

♪ Absolutely nothing ♪

♪ Say it again ♪

♪ War huh ♪

- The names of those who died
in the war this week are.

Mark King.

Thomas Diaz.

Tron T. Line.

John Cohen.

Lein Who.

Richard Washington.

Phong Boc.

Allen Peterson.

Tron Bon Duke.

Roger Brianski.

- Hey, hold on.

Hey, come on.

Relax.

Give it to me.

Knock it off.

- [David] Mr. Hoffman, we
are observing the moratorium.

- I am Judge Hoffman, sir.

- I believe in equality, sir.

So I prefer to call people
Mr. or by their first name.

- Sit down.

- We propose that we
observe a moment's silence.

- Court please, I would like the Marshall

to take this man into custody.

- We only wanted a moment of silence.

- I object to this man
speaking out in court.

- You needn't to object.

I forbid him to disrupt the proceedings

and I note for the
record that his name is.

- David Dellinger's my name, sir.

- The name of this man who has intended

to disrupt proceedings is David Dellinger

and the record will clearly
indicate that, Miss Reporter,

and I direct him and all the others

not to repeat such occurrence.

- Your honor, I want to
object Mr. Foran's yelling

in the presence of the jury.

Your honor, as the counselor
defense that's for yelling.

- Oh your honor, this is outrageous.

This man is a mouthpiece.

Just look at him wearing an
armband like his clients.

For any lawyer to come into a courtroom

and have no respect for the court.

The government protests his attitude

and would like to move the court

to make note of his conduct.

- Your honor, I think the
temper and the tone of voice

and the expression on Mr. Foran's face

tells more than any picture could tell.

- Of my contempt for Mr.--

- To call another attorney a mouthpiece.

And for your honor not to open his mouth

and say this is not to
be done in this court,

I think violates the
sanctity of this court.

It is a word that your honor knows

is contemptuous and contumacious.

- Don't tell me what I know.

- I am wearing an armband
to moratorium to the dead,

which is no disgrace in this country.

I want him admonished.

- Did you say you wanted to admonish me?

- I want you to admonish him.

- Let the record show I do not admonish

the United States attorney

because he has properly
represented his client,

the United States of America.

- To call another attorney a mouthpiece,

are you turning down my request?

After this disgraceful episode,

you are not going to say anything?

- I not only turn it down, I ignore it.

- That speaks louder than words.

- Sir, you are a lawyer in the
United States district court

permitting your client to stand up

in the presence of the jury
and disrupt these proceedings.

I do not know how to characterize it.

- We do not permit our clients.

They are free independent human
beings who have been brought

by the government into this courtroom.

- That is right.

They are free, but they will conform

to the directions of the court here, sir.

- Mr. Davis said, there would
be no way to deal logically

or rationally with the Chicago police.

That they were the most belligerent,

unthinking law enforcement agency

and that there was no hope
of avoiding a confrontation

with the Chicago police.

He said that if the demonstrators tried

to sleep in the park, they could expect

to be surrounded by the police

and that they should form separate groups

and break out of the park
and go into the city.

And in his own words,

tie it up and bust it up.

If an arrest situation commands,

Mr. Davis said, we just riot.

- Calling your attention
to an earlier afternoon

in Lincoln Park August 24th.

What was going on there?

- 25 or 30 people lined
up side by side in rows

of five or six so that they all
faced in the same direction.

Then each row linked arms and they began

to chant something to
synchronized foot movements.

Mr. Hayden told the group that
this snake dance formation

was the same type the
Japanese students used

to precipitate riots in Japan in 1960.

He said that by getting people
together in this formation,

it aroused their emotions.

It was very good for
breaking through police lines

and moving people in the
event of a riot situation.

- Did you see any of the defendants

directing those snake dances
and those karate techniques?

- Objection, leading.

- I don't believe it's leading.

I overrule the objection.

You may answer, sir.

- Mr. Hoffman was leading
one of those groups.

- I was not.

- You describe your
role as a paid informer.

- No.

- You recall making a
lengthy statement to the FBI?

And in it, what did you say
your employer said to you?

- Well he said, would you object

to infiltrating SDSN national mobilization

in order to get stories pertinent

to the democratic national convention?

I said, I would.

(audience chattering)

- Your honor is something happening?

I don't understand what's happening.

The marshalls are asking people to leave.

- [Julius] I know nothing about it.

Ladies and gentlemen, I
will not have talking,

finger waving or any distraction.

Do I make myself clear?

- I think there's a bit
of racism involved myself.

- Your honor, may the record show

that a number of the
marshals are black people.

This is, you know, this
is our daily exercise

by getting stories in the newspapers.

It's just so utterly ridiculous.

All I get from your clients
constantly is a laugh.

Just this second justice they sit there

and laugh at a judge of
the highest trial court

in the United States.

(men laughing)

- I don't wanna die.

I don't wanna be anybody's martyr,

but you know, to my wife, you know,

let my kid know that I just
stood up for some human justice.

- There is a motion here
of defendant Bobby Seale

to be permitted to defend himself.

- I will hear you, Mr. Seale.

- I wanna present this
motion on behalf of myself.

I am not a lawyer, but I do know that I,

as one of the defendants,
have a right to defend myself.

So I, Bobby Seale move
the court as follows.

Because I am denied the lawyer
of my choice Charles R. Gary,

I am forced to be my own
counsel and to defend myself.

I require my release from custody

so I can interview necessary witnesses,

do the necessary investigating,

and all other things that being
in custody makes impossible.

Cross examine witnesses,
make all necessary emotions,

and prove my innocence.

- Have you finished, sir?

- Yes.

- Your honor, the other
defendants would like

to join in this motion.

I'd like to call your honor's attention

to Adams versus the United States

with the Supreme Court said,

constitution does not force
a lawyer on a defendant.

Mr. Seale filed that he does not desire

to have me or any other attorney.

- Your honor, I know I
have gotten some attacks

from the government saying
we playing games over here.

I am not playing no game with my life

being stuck on the line.

And I want to put that into the record

to explain my situation.

- Mr. Schultz.

- Your honor, this is a ploy.

It's ludicrous.

The defendants know perfectly well

that if Mr. Seale were to
cross examine witnesses here

and argue to the jury,

we would have a mistrial in two minutes.

It's a game they're
playing with the court.

- In the view of the court,

the defendant Seale is now
represented by competent counsel.

Mr. Kunstler having filed his appearance

in Mr. Seale's behalf.

I find now to allow the defendant Seale

to act as his own attorney
would produce disruptive effect.

The complexity of the case

makes self representation inappropriate.

Motion will be denied.

- I should be allowed to defend myself.

- I will ask--

- I should be allowed to
speak so I can defend.

- Quiet.

- Don't tell me to shut up.

I got a write to speak.

- Mr. Seale, I admonish
you that any outbursts

such as you have just indulged in,

will be appropriately dealt with.

I must order you not to do it again.

- In other words, you are
saying you are gonna put me

in contempt of court for
speaking on behalf of myself.

- Will you be quiet?

That is all.

I will not argue with you.

You have lawyers to speak for you.

- Look, they don't speak for me.

I want to represent myself.

- Mr. Marshall, will you go to that man

and ask him to be quiet?

- I still want to defend myself
and I know I have the right.

- Be quiet.

- [Man] Hey, man.

- I just want to let him know that.

That racist.

You know, the black man tries

to get a fair trial in this country.

United States government, huh?

Nixon and the rest.

Well, go 'head.

Continue.

I'll watch and get railroaded.

- I filled out a form

for the national mobilization committee

stating that I'd like to be a Marshall

for the democratic convention.

- During this time, have
you been otherwise employed?

- Yes, as a member of
Chicago police department.

- Oink oink.

Swee.

- Now.

Calling your attention to
Friday, August 9th, 1968

in the morning where were you?

- Went to the national mobilization
committee headquarters.

Rennie Davis was there.

David Dellinger and many other people.

Mr. Davis said that
there'd many demonstrations

throughout the city and
the purpose of these

will be to stretch the police force out.

He said we would block
traffic going down the street.

We would block people from
going in and out of buildings.

We would smash windows and generally try

to shut the loop down.

Lee Wiener said that the Marshall

would probably wear helmets.

And John Froines said
that we should break up

into small groups and these
groups should be violent.

Everyone in the group agreed with this.

And Abbie Hoffman was at this meeting.

- Do you see Mr. Hoffman
here in the courtroom?

- Yes, I do.

- [Foran] Would you point him out please?

- He shot me with his finger.

His hair is very unkempt.

- Now on Tuesday, August
27th, where were you?

- I was in Lincoln Park and
there was a rally going on.

- [Foran] Did you recognize
any of the speakers?

- Jerry Rubin gave a
speech, Phil Oaks sang,

and the person who identified
himself as Bobby Seale spoke.

- I object to that because
my lawyer is not here.

I have been denied my right

to defend myself in this courtroom.

I object to this man's
testimony against me

because I have not been allowed
my constitutional right.

- I repeat to you, sir, you have a lawyer.

Your lawyer is Mr. Kunstler.

- He does not represent me.

- Now you just keep on this way and--

- Keep on with what?

- [Julius] Just sit down.

- Keep on what?

Keep on getting denied
my constitutional rights.

- Will you be quiet?

- Now I still object.

I object because you know it's wrong.

You denied me my right to
defend myself in this courtroom.

You think black people haven't got a mind.

Well we got big minds, good minds,

and we know how to come forth
with constitutional rights.

I'm not going to be quiet.

- Are you getting all this, Miss Reporter?

- Yes, sir.

- I hope you got my part
for the record, too.

Did you get it, ma'am?

- Yes, sir.

- Thank you.

- And that outburst also.

- I think you should understand

that we support Bobby Seale in this.

At least I do.

- I haven't asked for your advice, sir.

Please continue with
the direct examination.

- Now calling your attention
to Wednesday morning

at national mobile headquarters
on the 28th of August.

What was said by whom?

- John Froines was talking about

how he purchased butyric acid

and that he's done it before
for in hotels and restaurants.

He said it works really
well in restaurants

'cause butyric acid smells like vomit.

He talked making tear gas,

Molotov cocktails, mace and other devices.

And David Dellinger said, it
looks like we're not gonna have

to march around the amphitheater,

but we should have a march
anyway to use it as a diversion

to get people out of Lincoln Park.

- Out of which park?

- Grant Park.

I'm sorry.

- Mr. Foran, do you
believe one word of that?

- Your honor, may the
record show the comment

from the defendant Dellinger.

- Yes, Mr. Dellinger has
made several comments

from time to time.

The record--

- I asked Mr. Foran if he could possibly

believe one word of that?

I don't believe the witness believes it.

I don't believe Mr. Foran believes it.

- And continue to take his words.

I admonish you, sir, not
to interrupt this trial

by your conversation or your remarks.

You are not permitted to speak

while your competent
lawyer represents you.

(crowd chattering)

- Hello, Daddy.

- Hey, partner.

(crowd chattering)

- I wanna make a request, Judge Hoffman,

that my wife be let in with my son.

The Marshall has attempted to harass her.

- Mr. Marshall, you take
care of the requests

as far as admission to the
courtroom is concerned.

- In other words, my son
can't come in, right?

- Mr. Marshall, I have
not addressed this man.

Will you undertake to see what he wants

and do what is fair under the law?

Cross examine.

- You were expelled, were you not,

for throwing a university
professor off a stage physically?

- No, sir, I was not.

- What were you expelled for?

- I was expelled for being
with the group of people

that threw the president
off the stage, sir.

- Now when you were participating
in these discussions,

is it not true that you were receiving pay

from the police department
of the city of Chicago?

- That is correct.

- By the way, prior to your
coming into this courtroom,

how many discussions did you have

with the United States attorney

in this case regarding your testimony?

- There were about three.

- And is it not true that
Mr. Foran said to you

that your previous reports and testimony

did not implicate the defendants enough

and that you should
elaborate a little bit?

- No.

No, he didn't.

- No further questions.

- I would like to cross
examine the witnesses.

- You have a lawyer here.

- That man is not my lawyer.

The man made statements against me.

Furthermore, you are violating title 42

United States criminal code

because it states that
the black man cannot

be discriminated against
in his legal defense.

Hey, hey.

Did you see me make a
speech in Lincoln Park?

William.

Mr. William Frapperly, did
you see me make a speech?

- Mr. Marshall, will you ask that--

- Did you see me make a speech
on August 27th, Tuesday,

supposedly August 27th, Tuesday?

- You needn't answer
any of those questions.

Let the record show--

- Let the record show that you are

violating my constitutional rights.

- I admonish you, sir,

that you have allowed
contemptuous conduct.

- I admonish you.

I am not in contempt of nothing.

You are the one in contempt.

You are in contempt of
the constitutional rights

of the mass of people
in the United States.

- Do you want to listen to me?

- Why should I continue listening to you?

Unless you gonna give me
my constitutional rights.

Let me defend myself.

- [Julius] I'm warning
you, sir, that the law--

- Instead of warning me,
why don't you want me?

I have the right to defend myself.

- I am warning you that the
court has the right to gag you.

- Gag?

- [Julius] I don't wanna do that.

- Gag.

- [Julius] Under the law, you maybe--

- Gag?

I'm being railroaded already.

- The court has the right
and I am telling you--

- The court has no right whatever.

The court has no right to stop me

from speaking out on behalf
of my constitutional rights.

- Court will recess
until tomorrow morning.

- [Bailiff] Everyone will rise.

- I am not rising.

I am not rising until he recognizes

my constitutional rights.

Why should I rise for him?

He's not recognizing my
constitutional rights.

- See that he rises and
that other one, too.

- Mr. Hayden, will you please rise?

- Get all of the defendants to rise.

And let the record show

that the defendant, Mr.
Hayden, has not risen.

Mr. Kunstler, will you
advise your clients to rise?

- The court please it is my understanding

that there is no legal obligation

of the defendants to rise so long

as its failure to rise is not disruptive.

- You advise your clients
not to rise, do you?

- If your honor will direct
me, I will advise them.

- I direct.

- Then I will pass on your direction.

I will now pass on your direction to them.

I have heard you direct me.

I cannot in good conscience
do more than that.

They are free independent human beings

who must do as they please.

- Let the record show that none

of the defendants have risen.

The court will be in recess, Mr. Marshall.

- This was an American first.

Hear.

Your honorable judge Julius
J. Hoffman and all rise.

Everyone does but eight.

They don't get up.

Ugh.

The empire's they're like ugh.

The whole world's just collapsed.

- It upset me.

It made me pretty pissed
off that this fool can't see

that the sixth amendment
of the constitution

of the United States
says that every person

has a right to have
legal counsel of choice,

what have you, et cetera, in a courtroom

while going to court.

Now what's wrong with you?

I mean, here's the rule.

If you violated the rules,

you are violating the tenets
of share and share alike

and do unto others as you
would have them to do you.

That's what you were doing.

- Brothers and sisters,

we got a real situation going on up here.

Now I want you to understand

and appreciate the fact
that you got a right

to observe this trial
and see what's going on.

Am I right?

- [All] Right.

- [Bobby] But I don't want you
cats out there to get upset

and emotional and start doing anything

that's out of the ordinary.

Am I right?

- [All] Right.

- If anyone attacks us,
you know what to do.

We defend ourselves.

That's a principle of the party.

We defend ourselves whether
they have guns or not.

We defend ourselves.

If they make us leave the
courtroom, we just leave.

But be cool because I
got to do this myself.

- [All] Right on.

- Your honor, there's 25
Marshall's in here now

and they all got guns.

- Your honor, we are objecting
to this armed camped aspect.

- It is not an armed camp.

- Military state.

- If the court, please, before
you came into this courtroom.

If the court, please.

Bobby Seale stood up
and addressed this group

and he told these people in the audience

that if he's attacked,
they know what to do.

- You lie and I told them
to defend themselves.

You are rotten, racist,
paint, fascist liar.

I told them, I said,
if they were attacked,

they have a right to defend themselves.

And I hope the record carries that.

And I hope the records shows

that tricky Dick Schultz is a liar

and we have a right to defend ourselves.

And if you attack me,
I will defend myself.

(audience cheering)

- If the court please,
that is what he said

just as he related.

- You darn right.

- Let the record show the
tone in Mr. Seale's voice

was one of shrieking and
pounding on the table.

That'll be dealt with appropriately

at sometime in the future.

- The record should indicate

that Mr. Schultz stood at this lectern

and raised his voice quite
loudly in this courtroom.

- Yes, I think he raised his voice,

of what he said was the truth.

I can't blame him for raising his voice.

- Why don't you recognize
my constitutional rights?

- I have recognized every
constitutional right you have.

- You have not.

I wanna cross examine.

- All I have to tell you is this.

If you speak once again,
we will take such steps

as are indicated in the circumstance.

- If you try to suppress my
constitutional right to speak up

then I can only see you
as a bigot, a racist,

and a fascist as clearly
indicated in the court record.

- Mr. Fineglass.

- Weinglass.

- Weinglass, will you please continue

with the cross examination of
the witness if you desire to?

- Now you testified that you spent

a lot of time I believe with John Froines,

one of the defendants in this case.

- Sometime, yes.

- Isn't it a fact that you know

from what John Froines told you

that he doesn't even know
how to make a firebomb

or a Molotov cocktail?

- He said he didn't know how
to make a Molotov cocktail.

- [Weinglass] I have nothing further.

- I wanna request again, demand,

that I be able to cross
examine the witness.

You got Benjamin Franklin
and George Washington

sitting up there on a picture behind you

and they were both slave owners.

That's what they were.

And you are acting in the same manner

by denying me my constitutional right.

- Mr. Seale, I have admonished you--

- I have a right to defend
myself in this courtroom.

- What might happen to you
if you keep on talking.

Young man, if you keep this up--

- Look old man, you being
exposed to the public

and to the world that you do not care

about people's constitutional
rights to defend themselves.

- Have him sit down, Mr. Marshall.

- Why don't you recognize
my constitutional right?

I have a right to defend myself.

I have a right to cross
examine the witness.

- Show the court please--

- I have a right to defend myself.

- Bobby Seale in his seat.

- I still have a right--

- Putting him in the chair.

The defendant Dellinger
physically attempted

to interfere with them pushing
the marshalls out of the way.

- I have that right.

- Will you, Mr. Marshall,
have that man seated?

(audience chattering)

- Let the record show
the defendant Dellinger

is doing it again the same thing just now.

- [Julius] I saw it myself.

- Your honor, the overall
umbrella of intimidation

is denying these defendants
any chance of a fair trial.

- Your honor, I've never
in 20 years of practice

heard lawyers like Mr.
Kunstler and Mr. Weinglass

refuse to direct their
clients to conduct themselves

with courtesy and
decency in the courtroom.

As lawyers, our major obligation

is our oath to uphold the law.

And if the law's to be changed,

then this government offers
opportunity to change law by law

and not by disruptive tactics.

- Can I say something?

Can I say something to the court?

- No, thank you.

I have been called a racist and a fascist.

He has pointed to the picture
of George Washington behind me

and called him a slave owner.

- They were a slave owner.

- As though I had
anything to do with that.

- You got him up there.

- He is known as the
father of this country.

I would think it was a pretty good picture

to have in the United
States district court.

- We all share a common guilt, your honor.

- I didn't think I would
ever live to sit on a bench

and be in a courtroom
where George Washington

was assailed by a defendant
and the judge was criticized

for having his portrait on the wall.

- All I am saying is that these defendants

are not for disruption.

They are for peace.

- Say what about section
1982, title 42 of the code

where it states that a black man cannot

be discriminated against
in my legal defense,

in any courtroom in America?

- Mr. Seale, do you know--

- The law protects my right.

Why don't you recognize that?

- Mr. Seale, do you want to stop?

Or do you want me to direct
them to direct the marshall?

- Man, I wanna argue the point about this,

so you can come to an
understanding about the facts

that I have a right to defend myself.

- Take that defendant
into the room in there

and deal with him as he
should be dealt with.

- Help.

I still wanna be represented.

I still wanna represent myself.

I wanna represent myself.

I got a right.

I got a right.

I got a right.

- The court will be in
recess for a few minutes.

- Your honor, if Mr. Seale
would express his willingness

to be quiet will the court
entertain the possibility

of Mr. Seale being unbound and ungagged?

- I have tried so hard with all my heart

to get him to sit in this court

and be tried fairly and impartially.

And I have been greeted on every occasion

with all sorts of vicious invective.

Mr. Seale, all of your
constitutional rights have been

and will be preserved in this trial.

I assure you that if
you have any evidence,

when the time comes, we
will listen attentively.

If you will assure the court
that you will be respectful

and not cause disorder, I am willing

that you resume your
former place at the table.

Will you, sir?

- [Bobby] I have a right to
speak on behalf of myself.

- If you will give me your assurance,

will you please indicate by
raising your head up and down?

- Give me your assurance--

- I can't understand you, sir.

- I wanna defend myself.

I have the right to speak on behalf

of my constitutional rights.

- Mr. Marshall, I don't think you have

accomplished your purpose
by that contrivance.

We will take another recess.

- I wanna speak on behalf
of my constitutional right.

You can't deny me my rights.

You can't deny me my
constitutional rights.

- Bobby Seale's only
attempt in that courtroom

was an attempt to represent himself.

- Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,

I must tell you, the law requires

that the judge maintain order

and take such steps as are warranted.

Accordingly, the marshals have endeavored

to maintain order in the manner

that you see here in the courtroom.

- Your honor.

I move on behalf of the
other seven defendants

for the immediate removal of the gag

and the arm and the leg cuffs.

Mr. Seale was only attempting
to assert his rights

to self defense under the constitution.

- I direct you, ladies and gentlemen,

not to hold it against any
of the seven other defendants

when these measures are taken with respect

to defendant Mr. Seale.

These measures indicate no evidence

of his guilt or lack of guilt.

(metal clanking)

- The Marshall's would take an hour,

maybe two hours before the trial began

trying to force this gauze into his mouth.

- I said, no man.

No, man.

I said, man, what the fuck going on?

No.

- What are we trying to prove, your honor?

- We won't go in there
and sit in the trial

while Bobby Seale is bound and gagged.

- Meanwhile, Bobby and the Panthers

are saying don't do anything.

- Mr. Frapperly, you
indicated to the prosecutor

that you received instructions
from your superiors

not to participate in any violent actions.

Is that correct?

- That is correct.

- Now do you consider the
forcible removal of a president

of a university from the speakers
lectern a violent action?

If your honor.

If your honor, please.

The buckles on the leather strap

that's holding Mr. Seale's
hand is digging into his hand.

Could he be assisted?

- The Marshall concludes
that he needs assistance.

Of course.

- Your honor, are we going
to stop the medieval torture

that is going on in this courtroom?

Your honor, this is no
longer a court of order.

- They spit in his elbow.

Bite his mouth.

- Your honor, this is a big disgrace.

- Created by Mr. Kunstler.

- [William] Created by
none other than you.

- Why don't you come down
here and watch this, judge?

- You fascists dogs.

You low life son of a bitch.

- Somebody come protect him.

- Your honor, may the record show

that that comment was by Mr. Dellinger.

- May record show that Foran's a Nazi.

- And that is Mr. Rubin speaking.

- Everything you say will be taken down.

- Your honor, he's being choked to death.

- Cruel and unusual punishment.

You're a fascist dog, judge.

- You already gagged him?

Why don't you just kill him, huh?

- You are not permitted to
address the court, Mr. Hoffman.

- This isn't a court.

It's a neon oven.

- That was the defendant
Hoffman who spoke.

- This disruption started when
these guys got into overkill.

Don't you see it's the same
thing as last year in Chicago?

This is the same thing.

- Mr. Hoffman, you are ordered
to refrain from speaking.

Mr. Seale, you mind looking over here?

I would like to get from you, sir,

your assurance as an American citizen,

that you will not be guilty
of any disruptive act

during the continuance of this trial.

May I have your assurance?

Let the record show that
the defendant did not reply.

- If your honor, please.

- What is it, Mr. Weinstein?

Weinberg.

- Weinglass, your honor.

If your honor, please.

Mr. Seale was endeavoring to
answer the court by writing,

so I would like to read the
note that Mr. Seale has written.

I want and demand my
right to defend myself.

- I am calling for an end to this.

I don't think you have seen it

in your experience nor have I in mine.

- He is being treated in
accordance with the law.

- Not in accordance with the constitution

of the United States,
which is the supreme law.

- I don't need someone to
come here from New York

or wherever you come from to tell me

that there is a constitution
in the United States.

Why should I have to go through a trial

and be assailed in an obscene manner?

- But your honor, that is the reaction

of a black man not being
permitted to defend himself.

If you had said defend yourself,

none of this would have happened.

- I had lived a long time
and you are the first person

who has ever suggested
that I have discriminated

against a black man.

You don't know me, sir,
but I am as good a friend

to the black people in this
community as they have.

And if you don't believe
it, read the books.

Come into my chambers and
I will show you on the wall

why one of the great
newspapers of the city

said editorially about me in connection

with a school segregation case.

- Please your honor, this is
not a time for self praise

on either side of the lectern.

- It isn't self praise, sir.

It is defense.

I won't let a lawyer stand before the bar

and charge me with being a bigot.

- For God sake.

We are seeking the solution
to a human problem,

not whether you feel good or bad.

- [Man] The black man and white
man can walk down the same.

- That third day was a scene,

but it caused me not to
be gagged the fourth day.

- The court has done its best

to prevent the repeated efforts

to delay and obstruct this trial.

As we all know, the
defendant Bobby G. Seale

has been guilty of conduct
in the presence of the court

of so grave at character
as to continually disrupt

the orderly administration of justice.

- That's a lie.

I stood up and spoke on behalf of myself.

- You are making it very
difficult for me, Mr. Seale.

- You are making it very
difficult for me, Judge Hoffman.

- I find that the act statements

and conduct of the defendant Seale

each constitute contempt to this court.

The deliberate, willful attack

upon the administration of justice,

and accordingly the defendant
Seale will be committed

to the custody of the attorney
general for imprisonment.

Mr. Seale, you are free
to address the court

on the question of your punishment.

- How come I couldn't speak before?

- This is a special occasion.

- If you're talking
about putting me in jail,

I have nothing to say about that.

I have something to say about the fact

that I want to defend myself still.

- The court will be in recess.

- Wait a minute.

I got a right.

What's this cat trying to pull now?

I'm leaving?

I can't stay?

I demand an immediate trial right now.

- I'm sorry.

I can't try two cases
at the same time, sir.

- I have a right to go
through with this trial.

I want an immediate trial.

You can't call it a mistrial.

I'm put in four years for nothing.

You gonna put me in jail?

Man, I want my coat.

- Free Bobby.

- [All] Free Bobby.

Free Bobby.

Free Bobby.

Free Bobby.

Free Bobby.

Free Bobby.

Free Bobby.

Free Bobby.

Free Bobby.

- This was the human spirit winning

over the overwhelming power of the state.

They just couldn't shut the
guy up so they chucked him.

Got him out.

- I'm assigned to the subversive unit.

I joined veterans for peace.

I'm on the executive board
of the Chicago peace council

and the steering committee
of the new mobilization.

- While a member of these organizations,

were you in your undercover capacity

as a Chicago police officer?

- Yes, sir, I was.

- Would you relate to the court please

what you heard at the meetings
at which you were present?

- Well, Rennie Davis said that the people

should have a wall to wall sit in

in front of the Conrad Hilton.

They could break windows,
pull fire alarm boxes,

stone police cars, break street lights.

Mr. Rubin said that they
could start fires at the loop.

Mr. Froines said that they
could purchase ammonia

and throw this at the police.

Lee Wiener said that they
could let the air out of tires

or jam up traffic.

Tom Hayden said that if
the city doesn't give in

to our demands it would
be war on the streets.

Mr. Dellinger said that
we should have the march

and when stopped by
the police, we sit down

and practice the old forms

of non-resistance and nonviolence.

- [William] Like indecent
exposure, does it?

(men laughing)

- Mr. Kunstler is laughing
so he can influence the jury

with the impression that this is absurd.

- It is absurd.

He's a vaudeville actor.

- I like being here.

This is very interesting.

- That is the best statement

I have heard here during this trial.

You said you enjoy being here?

- Sure.

It's good theater.

- Oh.

Is it a fact that what makes
your memory so accurate today

is the 14 hours you spent

in discussing your testimony
with the prosecution?

- Objection.

- I sustain the objection.

- Now I ask you, officer,

to look at the seven men at that table.

Isn't it a fact that in
the entire period of time

that you spent with them
and in their company

at their meetings, the streets, the park

that you never saw one of them

commit a single act of violence.

You never saw any of
them strike a policeman.

- No, sir.

- Did any of them ever throw a rock?

- I don't believe I saw that.

- Did you ever see any
of them break a window?

- No, sir.

- Did you ever see any of
them making a fire bomb?

- No, sir.

- Little incidents were
breaking out quickly

between police officers
and members of the crowd.

There was spitting and shoving
and pushing and fighting.

And the officers responded
and they charged the crowd

and the crowd charge back and
a serious disorder broke out.

- Isn't it true that you
heard the national guard

or somebody in the national
guard was trigger happy

and released teargas where the crowd

was proceeding orderly out of the park?

- I have no recollection of hearing that.

The thing that continually crossed my mind

is this unlawful assembly in the street.

That was foremost in my mind.

I had no intention of permitting a mob

to take over the street.

- Now did there come a
time when night clubs

were used on the people?

- There were some.

Some use of night batons, yes.

- [William] There was
quite a lot, wasn't there?

- I don't know.

Quite a bit.

That was some.

- Did you yourself see any night batons

land on people's heads?

- Oh yes.

- Isn't it true that you saw
the Chicago police officers

beating people while they
were already on the ground?

- In some instances, yes.

But the person on the ground
was kicking and fighting back.

- Is there not some training information

on the proper use of a baton?

- [Superintendent] Yes.

- A training document says
never swing the baton as a club.

Is that true?

- Yes, but it's not an
absolute prohibition.

- Being very specific,
what did you find wrong

with what your police did if anything?

- Well, I really feel badly
that the police were unable

to control this vicious, mean, willful,

unlawful crowd without injury.

That I deeply regret.

As far as the police tactics,

some officers went a little beyond

what I expect them to do as
professional police officers.

As a result of that incident,

we have restrengthen our training program.

Each and every day, the sun changes,

so police procedures must be revised

in order to keep pace with
what's happening in the country.

Revolution is very possible.

Terror is very close to us.

- Your honor, a very interesting speech.

I really don't mind, except I do think

that it's not responsive.

♪ Seems to me ♪

♪ We got ♪

- We were facing 10 years in prison.

- The goal of our defense was

in a sense to recreate Chicago.

- With expert witnesses
on the counterculture.

- We decided to use the trial

to put the government on trial.

- I was helping a boy off the ground.

I was facing away out from the benches.

At this point, I turned
around toward the benches

and I saw a man with his back to me

bending over a girl on the ground.

This was a man in a business suit.

Also bending over the girl on the ground

was policemen holding her down

on the ground and hitting her.

I ran towards them shouting to stop.

And the plain clothes man turned around

and knocked me on my back.

And he took me by the
hair and he spun me around

and he said take this one, too.

Arrest them both.

He called the other girl a black bitch.

And he said, we know how
to treat you animals.

- What is your present occupation?

- [Businessman] I'm an
assistant safety director

for a candy company.

- Directing your attention
to August 28th, 1968

in the afternoon where were you

and what if anything occurred?

- I was in Grand Park.

A speaker was telling a crowd to back up,

sit down and was asking the police

to please clear out of the area.

- Could you identify the
speaker whose voice you heard?

- I believe it was David Dellinger.

- Now after you saw the crowd move,

what if anything, did you see?

- A platoon of helmeted police marched in

and stopped about 20 yards from the crowd.

Another platoon came marching in

maybe 30 yards behind them.

They were counting cadence

and slapping their sticks in their hands.

- Then what, if anything,
did you see the platoon do?

- They marched directly
into the crowd in step.

Broke ranks when they
hit the line of marshals

in front of the crowd and
chopped their way 100 yards

into a tightly packed crowd,
beating people all the way.

(crowd yelling)

- Wisconsin.

- Mr. Chairman, most
delegates to this convention

do not know that thousands of young people

are being beaten in
the streets of Chicago.

- Wisconsin does not press
acknowledged for that purpose.

(crowd yelling)

- They were just covered with blood.

His head was split open.

His shirt was covered with blood.

- At that point, I thought
I wasn't gonna make it.

- I'm a member of the British parliament.

I was first elected in 1964.

- Were you in Chicago during the period

of the democratic national convention?

- Yes.

- Well now.

We call our senators here senator

and we call our congressman congressman.

- You can call me honorable member

for Rochester and Chatham.

- Oh, that's a little long.

I'll just have to call
you a Madam witness.

- I was just trying to
make it easy for you.

- Don't make it easy for me.

That's not your responsibility.

- Mine's to tell the truth.

- Would you indicate what you saw

on the street Wednesday, August 28th.

- Well I went out across.

What is it?

Balboa Street.

I crossed the street and went down

to the pavement off Michigan Avenue.

I saw a whole crowd of
people across the street

and I saw a line of police.

I went up to one of
the young persons then.

I asked them what was happening.

I just said, what's going on?

Well, first of all, I'd had the, you know,

the CS gas and I've been coughing

and choking with the other people.

And then I was grabbed from behind.

A voice said move along there.

And I said, well, I was just
talking to these young people.

And then I was picked
up, grabbed and thrown

into a police wagon.

Those are the facts, my lord.

- I teach and recite poetry
and lecture at universities.

- [Weinglass] Did you ever study abroad?

- Oh yes.

I studied in India and Japan.

I studied mantra yoga,
meditation exercise.

Sitting quietly breathing exercises

to quiet the body and calm the mind.

- Did you have any occasion
to meet with Abbie Hoffman?

- Yeah.

- Do you recall what Mr. Hoffman said

in the course of conversation?

- Mm hm.

Yippee.

He said the politics was
becoming theater and magic.

That it was the manipulation of imagery

through the mass media that was confusing

and hypnotizing the people
in the United States,

making them accept a war,

which they really didn't believe in.

And that we ourselves might
get together in Chicago

and invite teachers to
present different ideas

of what's wrong with the planet.

What we can do to stop
the pollution crisis.

What we can do to stop the war.

- After he spoke to you, what if anything,

was your response to this suggestion?

- Well.

I was worried whether or not

the whole scene would become violent.

I was worried whether the
government would let us

do something that was funnier or prettier.

- Object, your honor.

Ask that it be stricken.

It's not responsive.

- Yes, I sustain the objection.

- Sir, that was our conversation.

- Now directing your attention
to Sunday, August 25th.

What did you do in the park?

- Well, there was an appearance

of a great mass of policemen going

through the center of the park.

I was afraid.

I felt the adrenaline run through my body,

so I sat down on a green hillside

with a group of younger people.

And I began chanting the magic password,

which cuts through all emergency illusion.

Ohm.

Ohm.

- All right, we've had a demonstration.

- All right.

- From here on, I object.

- I sustain the objection.

- If the court pleased
there's been much testimony

by the government's witnesses
whether there were stones

or people throwing things
or using obscenities.

Why can't we also hear what's being said

in the area of calming the crowd?

- I have no objection to the
two ohms that we've heard.

However, I just don't want
it to go on all morning.

- The two however you
characterize what the witness did

may remain on the record
and he may not continue

in the same vein.

- Now at approximately 8:00 p.m.,

what was occurring in the park?

- There was a great
crowd of people listening

to ministers conduct the ceremony.

Everybody was seated around the cross,

which was in the center of hundreds

of people who were singing.

♪ We shall overcome ♪

And then, oh after a short period of time,

there was a burst of smoke
and tear gas around the cross.

And I turned and I said, they have gas.

The cross of Christ.

- Your honor, I have some materials

that I'll have to get to properly carry

on my cross examination of this witness.

It will take me some time.

- Are you suggesting a recess?

- I would think, yes, your honor.

- All right, we will go until two o'clock.

- Your honor, we asked for
five minutes two days ago

and you refused to give it to us.

- You will have to cease
that disrespectful tone.

- Not disrespect.

It's an angry tone, your honor.

- Yes, it is.

It is.

I will grant the motion to the government.

- You refused us five minutes.

Why the different treatment?

- You are shouting at the court.

- Your honor, everybody
has raised their voice

in this court room including your honor.

- I have never shouted
at you during this trial.

- You have raised your
voice in this courtroom.

- You have been disrespectful.

- It is not disrespectful.

- [Julius] It's sometimes
even worse than that.

- [Kunstler] Oh, your honor.

- Ohm.

- Will you stop off the witness stand?

- He's just trying to calm us both down.

- I needn't no calming down.

(audience laughing)

♪ I do believe ♪

- [Man] Wait a minute.

Wait a minute.

(gavel pounding)

- Mr. Ginsburg.

Your name does kind of the
yippee religious leader.

Do you think that that's
a fair designation?

- Oh no.

Well, leader is a word
we try to get away from.

I mean, we tried to get away
from the authoritarian thing.

It was more like.

- Religious teacher.

- Religious experimenter, huh.

- Now concerning poetry
that you've written.

There's a poem called the Night Apple.

- [Allen] The Night Apple, yes.

- Would you recite that poem for the jury?

- Last night I dreamed of the one I love

for seven long years,
but I did not see a face.

I saw the familiar presence of the body.

Sweat, skin, eyes, feces, sperm, saliva.

All one odor and mortal tastes.

- Could you explain to the jury

what the religious
significance of that poem is?

- If you would take a wet dream

as a religious experience I could.

It was a description of a wet dream, sir.

- Do you have a poem
that you entitled Howl?

- Howl, yes, but Howl is a big poem.

I don't know it.

- Could you recite whatever
fragments you do recall?

- Yes.

I saw the best minds of my
generation destroyed by madness.

Starving.

Hysterical.

Naked.

Who shrieked with delight in police cars

for committing no other crime

than their own wild cooking
pederasty intoxication.

Who protested the narcotic
tobacco haze of capitalism.

What sphinx of cement and
aluminum bashed open these skulls

and ate their brains and imagination?

Moloch, solitude, filth, ugliness.

Ash cans and unobtainable dollars.

Children screaming in hallways.

Old men weeping in parks.

Boys sobbing in war.

Moloch, Moloch, Moloch.

The nightmare of Moloch.

Moloch the loveless.

Moloch the heavy judger of men.

Moloch the crossbones soulless jailhouse

and congress of sorrows.

Moloch whose buildings are judgment.

Moloch the vast stone of war.

Moloch the stunned governments.

- My name is Abbie.

I'm an orphan of America.

- Where do you reside?

- I live in Woodstock nation.

- Will you tell the court
and the jury where it is?

- Sure.

It's a nation of alienated young people.

We carry it around with
us as a state of mind,

much like the Sioux Indians carried around

the Sioux nation with them.

It's a nation dedicated to
cooperation versus competition,

to the idea that people
should have a better means

of exchange than property or money.

- When were you born?

- Psychologically 1960.

- Between your birth in 1960,

what if anything occurred in your life?

- Nothing.

I believe it's called
an American education.

- Objection.

- Objection sustained.

- Now can you tell the court and jury,

what is your present occupation?

- Yes, I am a cultural revolutionary.

Well.

I'm really a defendant.

Full time.

- Now taking you back to 1960.

- Objection.

- I sustain the objection.

- Your honor, this date has
great relevance to the trial.

I'm gonna bring him down through Chicago.

- Not in my presence you're
not gonna bring him down.

I sustain the objection to the question.

- My background has nothing
to do with my state of mind?

- Will you remain quiet
while I'm making a ruling?

I know you have no respect for me.

- Your honor, this is totally unwarranted.

I think your remarks call for a mistrial.

- Motion will be denied.

- Now directing your
attention to September 1967.

What were you doing?

- I was doing a number of things.

Among them was a meeting I had
with defendant Jerry Rubin.

Jerry said that the war in
Vietnam was not just an accident,

but that it was a byproduct
of a kind of system.

A capitalist system in the country

and that we had to begin to
put forth new kinds of values,

especially for the young
people in this country

to make a kind of society

in which a Vietnam war
would not be possible.

I said that America was in
the last stages of its empire

and that it was bent on
devouring its children.

I said that the Pentagon
is a five-sided symbol

of evil in most religions
and that we might be able

to approach this from a
religious point of view.

If we got large numbers of
people to surround the Pentagon,

we might be able to exercise
it of its evil spirits.

So we measured the Pentagon
to see how many people

would take to fit around it.

Of course we only have to measure one side

because then you just
multiply one times five

and you know depending on five sides.

You know what happened?

Do you know happened?

Surprise.

We got arrested.

Do you know it's illegal
to measure the Pentagon?

I didn't know it up to that point.

What a surprise.

Well anyway, when we got arrested,

they said, what do you think you're doing?

And we said, see we want to get a permit

to raise the Pentagon 300 feet in the air.

They said what?

How about 10?

So we said, okay.

- Your honor, I would ask Mr. Weinglass,

please get on with the trial of this case

and stop playing around with
raising the Pentagon 10 feet

or 300 feet off the ground.

- Your honor, I am glad to see
Mr. Schultz finally concedes

that things like levitating
the Pentagon building,

putting LSD in the water,
10,000 people walking nude

on Lake Michigan and a
$200,000 bribe attempt

are all playing around.

I am willing to concede that fact

that it was all playing around.

It was a play idea of this witness.

And if he's willing to concede
it, we can all go home.

- I sustain the objection.

- At this time, we would like

to introduce a film by Abbie Hoffman.

- Great.

- We regard this to be
absolutely essential

and indispensable to our case

that nothing better shows
Abbie Hoffman's state of mind.

♪ The young man started growing ♪

♪ The youngblood started flowing ♪

♪ But I am ♪

- [Narrator] The yippees decided

to enter their own candidate

in the presidential sweepstakes.

- The film is not serious I conceded,

but neither was the yippee myth.

- The film will not be
admitted as evidence.

- Abbie Hoffman, prior to coming
to Chicago from April 1968

onto the week of the convention,

did you enter into an
agreement with David Dellinger,

John Froines, Tom Hayden,
Jerry Rubin, Lee Wiener,

or Rennie Davis to come
to the city of Chicago

for the purpose of encouraging
and promoting violence

during the convention week?

- An agreement?

- Yes.

- Couldn't agree on lunch.

- [Weinglass] I have no further questions.

- Cross examination.

- Go 'head, Dick.

- Did you symbolically urinate
on the Pentagon, Mr. Hoffman?

- I symbolically urinate on the Pentagon?

- Yes.

- I didn't get that close.

Pee on the walls of the Pentagon?

You're getting to be out of site actually.

- Are you done, Mr. Hoffman?

- I'm done when you are.

- The fact is Mr. Hoffman, you were trying

to create a situation where the state

and the United States
government would have to bring

on the national guard in
order to protect the delegates

so that it would appear
that the convention

had to be held under military conditions.

Isn't that a fact?

- Come on, you can do that
with a yo-yo in this country.

It's quite easy.

Just look around this courtroom.

Look at all the troops around.

- Mr. Hoffman, while you were in Chicago,

you deliberately told your police tales

that you had had a fight with Rubin.

- Yes, deliberately.

- In order to destroy any
charges of conspiracy.

Isn't that right?

Isn't that right, Mr. Hoffman?

- Yes.

Yes, God, I was so sneaky.

Yes, I told that to the policemen.

It didn't work obviously.

- Mr. Hoffman, while you were negotiating

with city officials, you were
secretly attending meetings

and planning for
spontaneous acts of violence

during the democratic national convention.

Isn't that right?

- How do you plan for
spontaneous acts of violence?

I would have no idea how to do that.

- You wrote, did you not,
that you dismissed the thought

of attempting to take over a building

right across the street from
the police headquarters.

Isn't that right, Mr. Hoffman?

- Wait, wait, wait, wait.

Did you say that I had thoughts

or that I wrote that I had the thoughts?

You know, there is a difference.

- It is a convenient difference,
isn't it, Mr. Hoffman?

- I don't know what you
mean by that, Mr. Schultz.

I never been on trial
for my thoughts before.

- Your honor, that's outside the scope

of the direct examination.

- Mr. Weingrass, I overrule the objection.

- Wine grass.

Great combination.

- I order you to answer the question, sir.

You are required by law.

- What?

I just got a yes or a no.

All my years on this stand,

I never heard a ruling like that.

- Mr. Hoffman, isn't it a fact

that one of the reasons
why you came to Chicago

was simply to wreck American society?

- Oy.

My feeling at the time and still is

that society is gonna wreck itself.

I've said that on a number of occasions.

I said that our role is to survive

while society comes
tumbling down around us.

Our role is to survive.

- No matter what constituency

in America that I'm organized.

No matter what community.

I'm always confronted with that right off.

That we can't win.

That they're always gonna win.

The utility company wins all the time.

It's the way it's supposed to be.

Washington gets its way.

It's the most anti-democratic attitude.

And you think then you wonder like how,

where they pick this up along the way?

I didn't.

I mean, I must have fell off the truck

because I don't believe it for a minute.

- Your honor, is it possible

to conduct this direct examination

without having all these marshals

standing directly behind me?

We haven't had that for
the other witnesses.

- I leave the matter of
security, Mr. Kunstler

to the U.S. Marshall.

I find him a very competent man.

- What is your name?

- Richard Joseph Daley.

- What is your occupation?

- I am the mayor of the city of Chicago.

- Who is the chairman of the
park commissions in 1968?

- A proper designation is
president not chairman.

The president was William McFetridge.

- Is that the same William McFetridge

who announced your first
candidacy for mayor in 1954?

- Objection, your honor.

- I sustain the objection.

- Is it true, Mayor Daley,
that Mr. McFetridge once said,

the parks are not for the centers?

- Objection.

- [Defendants] I sustain the objection.

- [William] Mayor Daley.

- [Man] She didn't do anything.

- Your honor, what is happening?

- [Woman] Leave her alone.

- Will you let the Marshall
take care of the rear row?

- [Woman] Move it.

- [Man] Hey, what you doing?

(audience yelling)

- What about that?

- He's hitting Greg in the face.

- I don't understand.

Your honor, we have information that none

of the people doing the
removing are not Marshalls,

but employees of the city of Chicago.

- If everybody will be quiet and listen

to the testimony of the witness,
there will be no disorder.

Will you please proceed, sir,

with the direct examination
of this witness?

Otherwise, I will direct the
witness to leave the stand.

- Mayor Daley.

On April 15th, did you not
order your police department

to shoot to kill and
shoot to maim black people

in the city of Chicago?

- Your honor, I object to
the question on the grounds

that it is leading
suggestive and material.

- Your honor, I have to
ask a leading question

in order to move.

- No, no, you don't have to.

I won't permit you to.

- Then at the moment I move

that Mayor Daley be
declared a hostile witness.

- What?

The mayor's been the
most friendly witness.

- I want to indicate the
word hostile, your honor.

All of the defendants feel Mayor
Daley is a hostile witness.

Hostile in the sense that
they attribute to him

everything that happened to them,

inclusion with other people

in the city of Chicago last summer.

- Don't know whether the
witness is hostile as a witness.

He may have been hostile as a mayor,

but he may not be hostile as a witness.

This matter has been that of a gentlemen.

Motion of the defense will be denied.

- Mayor Daley, on the 28th of August 1968.

- We wouldn't have to
have Gestapo tactics.

- Did you say to Senator Rivercock.

- Your honor.

- Did you say that and
quote, "Fuck you, you Jew?

"Listen to that.

"You love me, motherfucker.

"Go home."

Unquote.

- Yeah, go.

- Foolish, improper questions.

- Court will recess for 15 minutes.

- Just please.

Just go.

- Yeah.

Hey, hey.

What's with all these lawyers
and everything here, huh?

Why don't you and me
settle this right here?

Let's go.

Come on.

- I was at the Americana
Hotel in New York City

attending a press conference.

It was to announce the formation
of what we have now come

to know of as the yippee movement.

- [William] And what did you
do at that press conference?

- Well.

♪ Where have all the flowers gone ♪

♪ Long time passing ♪

♪ Where have all ♪

- [Julius] Just a minute, young lady.

♪ The flowers gone ♪

♪ Long time ago ♪

♪ Where have all the flowers gone ♪

♪ Gone to graveyard ♪

- [Marshall] I'm sorry.

Judge would like to speak to you.

- We don't allow any
singing in this court.

I'm sorry.

We're not here to be entertained.

We are trying a very important case.

- The song is not an
entertainment, your honor.

It's a song of peace and what happens

to men and women during war time.

- I forbid her from
singing during this trial.

- The first time I came
to the city of Chicago

was to visit the
international amphitheater

in a poultry judging contest in 1956.

I had just won the Eastern United States

poultry judging contest in four H.

I was 16.

- Now directing your attention

to the evening of November 20th, 1967,

could you relate the words you spoke?

- I began by holding
up a small steel ball.

It was green.

About the size of a tennis ball.

And I said this bomb was dropped

on a city of 100,000 people.

A city called Danang.

I said it was delivered by
an American fighter jet.

And that when this cluster bomb exploded

about 640 of these steel balls
were spewed into the sky.

Now one of these steel balls, I explained,

was roughly three times the power

of an old fashioned hand grenade.

Now with 640 of them going off,

you can spray 250,000 square yards

with steel pellets and shrapnel.

Every living thing exposed will die,

whether it's a water buffalo
or a water buffalo boy.

If this bomb were to go off in this room,

everyone in the room would die,

but it wouldn't destroy
the lecture podium.

Wouldn't damage the walls.

And ceiling, the floor, it takes life,

but it leaves the institution.

It's the ideal weapon for the mentality

that reasons that life is
less precious than property.

Then I said that I, as
an American citizen,

am deeply perturbed that
we live in a country

where our own government's
lying to American people.

I said, I'm going to the
democratic national convention

because I want the world to know

that there are thousands of young people

in this country who do not want

to see a rigged convention
rubber stamp the war.

- Isn't it a fact that
your plan in Chicago

was to combine the peacefulness of Gandhi

and the violence of active resistance?

Isn't that a fact?

- No, it's not a fact.

In fact, that's not even close.

And you know it.

- Your honor.

May we strike that?

He whispered to the court
reporter and you know it.

- No, I made that man to man to Mr. Foran.

- Your honor, ask the
jury to disregard that

since as a lawyer in court, I
can't properly respond to it.

- I hope after this trial,

you can properly respond, Mr. Foran.

I really do.

- I don't know what you're.

- That you and I can sit down

and talk about what happened
in Chicago and why it happened.

- [Julius] Mr. Witness.

- [Rennie] I'd like to do that very much.

- Mr. Witness.

- [Foran] Your honor.

- Do you hear me, sir?

- Yes, I do.

- [Julius] You didn't respond to--

- I'm sorry.

- I don't accept your apologies.

- Isn't it a fact that all
the vile and vulgar propaganda

that the yippees were passing out

was to make the authorities
look repressive?

- Sir, no one had to make
that city look repressive.

The city was repressive.

- You and your people wanted
violence in Lincoln Park.

Didn't you?

- Your questions embarrass me.

They're so terrible.

They really do.

- Well answer it.

- It's my belief that it was you

who wanted the violence,
Mr. Foran, not me.

I did not want violence.

- You did want to impose an
international humiliation

on the people that rule this country.

Isn't that correct?

- I'm afraid our government
has already humiliated itself

in the international community, sir.

Can't you understand?

It's so simple.

I'm just trying to find a
way that this generation

can make this country something
better than what it's been.

- Ralph Abernathy.

He had been the leader of the mule train.

That was the demonstration
by the Southern Christian

leadership conference of poor people.

- Your honor.

We had originally contacted
Dr. Ralph Abernathy

to be a witness but he
was out of the country.

He has just returned.

He is arriving at this
moment at O'Hare airport.

We think his testimony is crucial.

- I certainly am not
going to wait for him.

There have been several witnesses
called during this trial

whose testimony could not
even be presented to the jury.

Singers, performers.

I'll deny your motion.

- I think that what you have just said

is about the most outrageous statement

that I have ever heard from a bench

and I'm going to have my say right now.

I'm trembling.

I'm so outraged for you
to say on a technicality

that we cannot put Dr.
Abernathy on the stand.

Dr. Abernathy is president

of the Southern Christian
leadership movement.

He is chairman of the
mobilization against war.

He has relevant testimony.

I know this is not a fair trial.

I know it in my heart.

And I am going to return to my chair

with the full realization
that everything I have learned

throughout my life has gone for naught.

That there is no meaning in this court.

That there is no law in this court.

(audience clapping)

- Out with those applauders.

- Hey, I applauded too, your honor.

Throw me out.

- [Foran] Your honor, may we proceed

with a rebuttal case for the government?

- [Julius] Yes, you may.

- Now calling your attention

to Wednesday, August 28th at 5:45.

Did you have occasion
to see David Dellinger?

- [Police Chief] I did.

He was confronting me at
the head of the march.

- Did you see where Dellinger went?

- He left with the head of the group

that were carrying the flag.

- Bullshit.

That's an absolute lie.

- Did you get that, Miss Reporter?

- Let's argue about what you
stand for and what I stand for,

but let's not go making
things up like that.

- [Julius] All of those remarks were made

from the presence of the court
and jury by Mr. Dellinger.

- Sometimes the human spirit
can stand so much, your honor.

I think David Dellinger has reached--

- I have never heard anymore

than a half a century of the bar

a man using profanity in this court.

- You haven't sat here as a defendant

and listen to lies on the witness stand.

- You're a snake.

And we have to try and put
you in jail for 10 years

for telling lies about us, Dick Schultz.

- Be quiet, Mr. Dellinger.

- When this trial is over,
the judge will go to Florida,

but if he has his way, the
rest of us will go to jail.

And what we're fighting
for is not just us,

but for all the rest of
the people in this country

who are being oppressed.

(crowd cheering)

- Take that man into
custody, Mr. Marshall.

Take him into custody.

- Into custody?

- Into custody.

- Go 'head, Dick Schultz.

Just put everybody in jail.

- Dick Schultz is a
Nazi if I ever knew one.

- You brought this on, your honor.

This is your fault.

This is exactly what happened in Chicago.

- This court is bullshit.

- There he is saying the same word.

- No, no, I said it.

- David Dellinger did not
make that last remark.

- Davis.

It was the defendant Davis.

- Everything in this court is bullshit.

- Clear the courtroom.

- You can jail a revolutionary, Julie,

but you can't jail a revolution.

- You're a disgrace.

You would've served Hitler better.

- [Foran] That was Mr. Hoffman.

- You damn right it was.

- I saw him and I heard him.

- Hey stunk.

- [Marshall] Mr. Hoffman.

- Stick that up your bowling ball, pal.

Hey Julie, how are your war stocks doing?

- Mr. Marshall, order him to remain quiet.

- Order?

You'll have to cut our
tongues out to order us.

Fuck you, guys.

- You're the laughingstock
of the world, Julius Hoffman.

You are the laughingstock of the world.

Every kid in the world hates you.

- To see this trial right,
you gotta understand

that this trial was being
seen by millions of people

as a one minute cartoon each night.

(audience laughing)
(men whistling)

- May the record show the
defendants Hoffman and Rubin

came in attire in what might
be called collegiate robes.

- That's judges robes.

- Some might even consider
them judicial robes.

Your idea, Mr. Kunstler?

Another one of your brilliant ideas?

- Your honor, I can't take
the credit for this one.

- That amazes me.

- I sustain the objection.

- Well I object that sustain.

- Please sit down.

- [Abbie] I overrule that sustain.

- Well I sustain that overrule.

Off with the robe.

- [Abbie] Off with the robes?

(audience laughing)
(audience cheering)

- I proudly accept the
nomination of our party.

(audience cheering)

Surely we have now learned a lesson.

Violence breeds counter violence

and it cannot be condoned
whatever the source.

(audience cheering)

- The point is that they
came here wanting a riot.

We have shown that these defendants,

all seven of them had a common purpose

of bringing disruption and
inciting violence in this city

and that all seven
participated working together

to further these plans.

Oh, they never explicitly said,
you do that to blow up that.

That is not how they did it.

It was tacit understanding.

A working together in all
these meetings that they had.

And that is how they conspired.

They came here to riot.

- They didn't look for the
violence with the police.

They were a crowd that wanted to march.

They weren't permitted to march.

They stayed in the streets and chanted,

but does that mean that the
police should wade into them

and beat them and club them?

Is that the way we've come to deal

with people in this country

who adamantly insist on
the right to protest?

- We are living in
extremely troubled times.

An intolerable war has
divided and dismayed us.

Racism at home and poverty

caused despair and discouragement.

In a so-called affluent society,

we have people who can't even
approximate the decent life.

These are rough problems,
terrible problems,

but they don't go away by
destroying their critics.

They don't vanish by sending men to jail.

You can crucify the Jesus.

You can poison the Socrates.

You can hang John Brown or Nathan Hale.

You can kill the trait of honor.

You can jail Eugene Debs or a Bobby Seale.

You can assassinate John Kennedy

or a Martin Luther King.

But the problems.

Remain.

- Remember at the beginning of this case,

they were calling them
all by diminutive names,

Rennie and Abbie and Jerry,

trying to pretend that
they were young kids.

They're not kids.

They're highly sophisticated educated men

and they are evil men.

Now there are millions of kids

who naturally resent authority.

They feel the horrors of racism

and the frustration of this
terribly difficult war.

They're impatient for a change.

You want to fix things up.

And there's another thing about a kid.

If we all remember, that you
have an attraction to evil.

Evil is exciting.

It's interesting.

These guys take advantage
evilly to corrupt those kids

and use them for their purposes.

And you know what their purpose was?

To disrupt.

To have war in the streets.

Tear the city apart.

Fuck up the convention.

Laws to these people are
viewed as suggestions

that they can obey or not
obey just as they please.

Oh, they're sophisticated
and they're smart

and they're just as evil as they can be.

Now can you imagine, you know,
the way they named dropped?

Can you imagine?

And it's almost blasphemous to
say it that they named Jesus.

They named Martin Luther King.

Can you imagine those
men supporting these--

- Yes, I can.

I can imagine it because it's true.

- Remove these people, Mr. Marshall.

- That's my daughter.

- I don't wanna listen to
anymore of these disgusting.

- Hey, don't you hit her like that.

I saw you.

That man hit her on the
head for saying the truth.

- Mr. Marshall, have that man sit down.

- See how it works.

Don't hit her.

- He did hit her.

- He did hit her.
- Oh bunk.

- I saw him hit her.

- Remove that woman.

Remove her and don't let
her return, Mr. Marshall.

- Abbie Hoffman walked over
to my youngest daughter,

put his arms around her and said,

your dad will be all right.

She's never forgotten that.

Neither have I.

- Contempt by definition is
any act calculated to hinder

or disrupt the court and the
administration of justice.

And to lessen the court's authority

knowingly and deliberately.

- The contempt occurred
right after the jury retired.

- I don't think we all, you
know, really fully understood.

- They were at the will
and whim of the judge.

- I find these defendants in this case

and the lawyers have
committed numerous acts,

which have convinced the total disregard

for the proper conduct of any trial.

I will first consider the conduct

of the defendant David Dellinger.

Mr. Dellinger, you care to say anything?

Only in respect to
punishment I will hear you.

I don't want you to talk politics.

- Well, that's why I needed to stand up

because you tried to keep
what you call politics,

which means the truth
out of this courtroom.

- I will ask you to sit down.

- And therefore it's necessary.

- I won't let you go any further.

- You want us to be like good Germans

supporting the evils of our decade.

Then you want us to be like good Jews

and go politely and quietly
into the concentration camps

while you and this court
suppress freedom and truth.

Well, I am not prepared to do that.

Then you want us to stay in
our place like black people.

- Mr. Marshall.

- [David] Like poor people.

Like women are supposed
to stay in their place.

- [Marshall] Sit down, Mr. Dellinger.

- Well a new generation of Americans

will not support tyranny.

That's a travesty of justice
and I will reflect the spirit.

- Take him out.

- [Man] You're a tyrant, Hoffman.

(audience yelling)

- What are you doing to us, judge?

What are you doing?

- Heil Hitler.

Heil Hitler.

Heil.

You satisfied now?

Huh, you satisfied?

- You have just jailed
one of the most beautiful

and one of the most courageous
men in the United States.

- All right, now we will
talk about you, Mr. Davis.

Care to be heard?

- You may not believe this,

but we came here to have a trial,

even though we regarded it as
unconstitutional and unjust.

Judge, you represent all that is old,

ugly, bigoted, and
repressive in this country.

And I will tell you that the
spirit at the defense table

will devour you and your
sickness in the next generation.

- See you in jail.

- Whole country's in jail.

- See you in jail, brother.

- We now come to the consideration

of the matter of Thomas Hayden.

Mr. Hayden.

- The problem that I
think most people have

who wanna punish us is that

punishment does not seem to have effect.

Even as the Elder Dellinger is taken off,

a younger Dellinger fights back.

So your honor, before your eyes,

you're seeing the most vital ingredient

of the system collapsing

because the system does not hold together.

- Oh, don't be so pessimistic.

Our system isn't collapsing.

Fellows as smart as you could do

awfully well under our system.

I'm not trying to convert you, mind you.

- We don't wanna place
in your regimen, Julie,

- I can state only one thing

that affected my feelings about punishment

and that is that I would
like to have a child.

- Here's where the federal
system can do you no good.

- The federal system can do you no good

in trying to prevent the
birth of a new world.

- [Man] Right on.

- I will hear it from you and Mr. Hoffman

if you will be respectful.

- Respectful.

My six year old daughter
sent me a note yesterday.

She said.

She said maybe the judge
should change his glasses

because then he could really see

what the defendants are all about.

When the law is in tyranny,
the only order is disrespect

and that's what we showed.

And that's what all honorable
men of free will will show.

- I will hear Mr. Rubin.

- Judge Hoffman, your honor.

I came to this trial.

I wanted to be indicted.

To be indicted at this trial

is like winning the
Academy Award of protest.

You have said to us respect or else

without any moral
argument, and frankly sir,

I think that you have shown
more disrespect towards us

than we could have ever been shown to you.

We're going to jail with
smiles on our faces.

There are millions of kids who love us,

who identify with us, who are
going to fight to free us.

And that, sir, that is the revolution.

- Mr. Weiner, if you'll
confine your remarks

to punishment I will hear you.

- Sure.

Okay.

Throughout this trial,
I've sat in a quiet rage

as I've seen over and over again,

the best men of our country
belittled and attacked.

Now I understand that
because you are what you are,

I can't personally condemn you.

- I admonish you, sir.

I am supposed to be especially tolerant

because I was a member of
a faculty of the school

that you are or were a teacher.

- Yes, I even understand
that there's a plaque

naming an auditorium after you.

- Oh, you're nice to tell
the assembled spectators.

- I'm pleased to report to you

that the plaque has been
ripped off the wall.

- The plaque?

- Apparently while the board of trustees

feels affection for you,
the student body does not.

- Now we come to the
consideration of John Froines.

- When history is written,

the men who sat at this
table, our table here,

that's the heroes.

- This matter now involves the conduct

of Mr. William Kunstler.

You wish to be heard Mr. Kunstler?

- I've tried with all my heart faithfully

to represent my clients in the face

of what I consider repressive

and unjust conduct toward them.

If I have to pay with my
liberty, for such repression,

then that is the price of my
beliefs and sensibilities.

I can only hope that my fate
does not deter other lawyers

in the difficult days that lie ahead,

who will be asked to defend clients

against a steadily increasing
governmental encroachment

upon their most fundamental liberties.

- [Julius] Mr. Weinglass.

- What the court has chosen
to label as direct contempt,

I cite as nothing more than
the argument of counsel

in the heat of battle.

And I think you do a
disservice to the profession.

I face punishment,
whatever punishment means,

but I welcome joining the
defendants and Bill Kunstler

in what has been for me the warmest

and richest association of my life.

- Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,

I am informed you have reached a verdict.

I direct the clerk to read the verdict.

- We, the jury, find the
defendants Lee Wiener

and John Froines not guilty as charged.

We, the jury find the
defendants David Dellinger,

Renard Davis, Thomas
Hayden, Abbott Hoffman,

and Jerry Rubin not guilty of conspiring,

but guilty of intending to organize,

promote, and incite to riot.

- I now proceed with the
imposition of sentence.

I will hear for your
clients, Mr. Kunstler.

- The defendants will
speak with themselves.

- All right.

Mr. Dellinger, you have a right
to speak in your own behalf.

- First, I would like to say

that I feel that every
judge should be required

to spend some time in prison
before sentencing other people

in order that he might become aware

of the degrading anti-human conditions

that persist in our prisons.

I feel more compassion for
you, sir, than I do hostility.

I believe that you're a man
who's had too much power

over too many people for too many years.

What happens to us here,
however unjustified,

is very slight compared to

what has already happened
to the Vietnamese people,

to the black people in this
country and to the criminals,

with whom we're now spending our days.

Finally, there's something ambivalent

in my attitude towards you

because I think one can
see something spunky in you

that one has to admire however misguided

or intolerant I believe that you are.

- Mr. Davis, would you like
to speak in your own behalf?

You have that right.

- When I come out of prison,

it's gonna be to move
next door to Tom Foran.

I'm gonna be the boy
next door to Tom Foran.

The boy next door that
could have been a judge.

He could have been a prosecutor.

I'm gonna be the boy next door

that organizes his kids
into the revolution.

- Mr. Hayden.

- If you didn't wanna make
us martyrs, why'd you do it?

We can hardly be notorious characters

if they'd left us alone
in the streets of Chicago,

but instead we became the
masterminds of a conspiracy,

chosen by the government
to serve as scapegoats.

You know that by doing this,

it speeds up the end for
the people who do it to us.

We had no choice in Chicago.

We had no choice in this trial.

- Mr. Hoffman.

- Mr. Foran says that we're un-American.

I don't feel un-American.

I feel very American.

I know those guys up on the wall.

I know them better than you I feel.

I know Adams.

I know all the Adams.

They grew up 20 miles from
my home in Massachusetts.

Thomas Jefferson.

Thomas Jefferson called for
a revolution every 10 years.

Thomas Jefferson had an
agrarian reform program

that would make Mao Zedong
look like a liberal.

George Washington.

George Washington grew pot.

Wait, he called it hemp.

But he was probably a pothead.

Abraham Lincoln.

Abraham Lincoln said in his
inaugural address of 1861.

He said.

When the people should grow weary

of their constitutional right
to amend the government,

they shall exert the
revolutionary right to dismember

and overthrow that government.

Now come on, Julie.

If he had made that
speech in Lincoln Park,

he'd be standing in this
courtroom on trial right now

because that speech is
intended to incite a riot.

I don't know what a riot is.

I thought a riot meant having fun.

You know, like means
when you laugh (laughs).

That's a riot.

I'll see you in Florida, Julie.

- Mr. Rubin.

- You're sentencing us
for being ourselves.

That's the crime.

Julius, you've radicalized
more young people

than we ever could have.

This is the happiest day of my life.

- Mr. Clerk, the defendants
will be committed

to the attorney general for
imprisonment for five years.

Will be fined the sum of
$5,000 in cost of prosecution.

- $5,000, judge?

Could you make that 350?

- Court finds that the defendants

are clearly dangerous
persons to be at large.

Therefore the commitments
will be without bail.

(audience yelling)

- Wait a minute.

A riot.

- Every one of those
defendants was willing

to go to jail for 10 years,
which was what we faced.

- I think my fear was
that we'd never get out.

- Although we did know

that history only remembers the guilty.

It doesn't remember the not guilty.

- As a matter of fact,

the seventh circuit court of
appeals reversed the case.

- He found that the, any of
our actions were provoked

by the actions of the
judge and the prosecutors.

- It put justice itself, really,

in the history of the United
States of America on trial.

♪ So your brothers bound and gagged ♪

♪ And they've chained him to a chair ♪

♪ Won't you please come to Chicago ♪

- The significance of the trial
is that it showed, I think,

for the first time how
ingenious defendants

can use the courtroom to
get their point across

and not to be afraid of authority.

- It's lonely out there.

It's lonely when you stand on the corner

and say the emperor's got no clothes.

There's a whole bunch of people

that wanna come along and say,

there's an easier way to do this.

- I got married.

I have two kids, three dogs.

Seat in the state legislature.

And I still miss the old days.

- The sense that you can
be young your whole life

is happens to be a true statement

and I think along the way we lost touch

with some of those values and perhaps,

perhaps it's not too late to
find the best of that time.

- I think one has to be
an activist for justice

if when it believes in peace
that you can't get rid of war

without getting rid of the causes of war.

- I would hope my children
do their political work

even better than I did mine.

And I'm doing mine now.

- It was a very good time in which to live

because you really felt that
you were living for something

that was very meaningful and very real.

And I still feel the same way.

- I would describe myself
now as a entrepreneur,

as a business person,

as someone who's as confused politically

as I was certainly in the 60s.

- I'll be a barbecuing, muscle bound, PhD,

political scientist whose
published several books,

still rapping to brothers and sisters

being energetic about myself
as a good human being,

trying to live as long as WB Dubois did.

- The notion that dedication to principle

is the basis upon which
a life should be built

and that these eight people

for a particular period of time did that

and fought hard, took risks,

and were ultimately
vindicated as being right.

♪ Freedom ♪

♪ It's time ♪

♪ Let them that it's all right ♪

♪ It's time ♪

♪ Who's the regulator who needs them ♪

♪ Ooh ooh ♪

♪ Open up the door ♪