The Trial: A History from Socrates to O. J. Simpson

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Sadakat Kadri. The Trial: A History from Socrates to O. J. Simpson

The Trial

Sadakat Kadri

Contents

Introduction

1 From Eden to Ordeals

2 The Inquisition

3 The Jury Trial (1)

4 The Witch Trial

5 The Trials of Animals, Corpses, and Things

6 The Moscow Show Trials

7 The War Crimes Trial

8 The Jury Trial (2): A Theatre of Justice

Conclusion

Acknowledgements

Further Reading

Notes

Introduction

Chapter 1: From Eden to Ordeals

Chapter 2: The Inquisition

Chapter 3: The Jury Trial (1)

Chapter 4: The Witch Trial

Chapter 5: The Trials of Animals, Corpses, and Things

Chapter 6: The Moscow Show Trials

Chapter 7: The War Crimes Trial

Chapter 8: The Jury Trial (2): A Theatre of Justice

Conclusion

Index

P.S

The Dream of Justice

LIFE at a Glance

A Writing Life

The Difference Between God and Lawyers

Sadakat Kadri’s Suggested Further Reading

Films to Watch

The Web Detective

About the Author

Praise

By the same author

Copyright

About the Publisher

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A History from Socrates to O.J. Simpson

Title Page

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At the end of the first millennium AD, attitudes towards criminal justice in Europe therefore stood at a cusp. Religious and secular authorities were trying to encourage individuals to give courts a chance before taking matters into their own hands, but the belief in vengeance remained alive and well. The passions of the feud were being accommodated rather than ignored, and they were always liable to spill over beyond the institutions designed to contain them. No tale better captures the frailty – and peculiarity – of the attempts to tame gang warfare with the oath than the Icelandic Saga of Burnt Njal.

The story was written almost three centuries after the island’s conversion to Christianity in AD 1000, but it depicts a land rumbling to rhythms far older: a volcanic place of trolls and sprites, where the earth would more likely shrug its shoulders than a man would turn the other cheek. Feuds erupt and cool throughout the fifty years spanned by the work, but the narrative hinges at a point when men loyal to a chieftain called Flosi burn the eponymous Njal to death in his farmhouse. Njal and his wife steadfastly await the flames from the discomfort of their bed and his immediate family chooses to perish alongside him, but one relative determines to escape. Nephew Kari Solmundarson clambers to the rafters and, treading timbers that are sweating smoke, reaches the edge of the building. Seconds after he leaps from the roof, his hair and clothes ablaze, it crashes to the ground. After dousing his sorrows in a nearby stream, he embarks on the mission that will make his name a byword for good fortune throughout Iceland. In agony though he is, disfigured though he is, and bereaved though he is, Kari is also very, very lucky. He has survived to seek revenge.

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