The Chicago Eight Conspiracy Trial at Fifty: Blind Justice in Polarized Times
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Social Education 83(3), p. 142–146 ©2019 National Council for the Social Studies Lessons on the Law The Chicago Eight Conspiracy Trial at Fifty: Blind Justice in Polarized Times David Farber In March 1969, President Richard Nixon’s newly appointed attorney general, John forced Americans to confront the mean- Mitchell, signed off on the prosecution of eight men, all left-wing activists, for ing and practice of America’s constitu- their involvement in August 1968 protests at the National Democratic Presidential tionally protected rights to free speech Nominating Convention in Chicago. Mitchell authorized the prosecutions under and assembly, the impartiality of the U.S. the anti-riot provisions of a new, previously unused law. Congress had passed that judicial system, and the right and limits law, the Anti-Riot Act of 1968, shortly after the urban uprisings in cities across the of American citizens to defend them- United States following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in April 1968. selves in courts of law. The Chicago That federal law, put bluntly, made it illegal to travel across state lines to “incite a riot.” Eight would, eventually, be found not guilty on all counts, but not before mil- Six of the eight men charged under Johnson’s attorney general, Ramsey lions of Americans recoiled from the the anti-riot act were prominent leaders Clark, had chosen not to prosecute any politically motivated and politically of the anti-war and racial justice move- protesters for the Chicago convention charged prosecution. At the same time, ment in the United States. One of them, events. Indeed, Clark (by then the for- many millions more embraced the kind Tom Hayden, was the main progenitor mer attorney general) would be called to of fierce “law and order” politics that of the student New Left. Another, Dave testify on behalf of the defendants dur- underlay Richard Nixon’s presidency. Dellinger, was the head of the largest ing the Chicago Eight Conspiracy Trial. The Chicago Eight trial was a mile- anti-war organization in the United Between September 24, 1969, and stone in American legal history. The States. Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin February 18, 1970, federal prosecutors defendants demanded not only the right championed a hybrid organization, the tried the defendants in the U.S. District to challenge the government’s specific Yippies, which sought to connect coun- Court for the Northern District of charges but to protest the very legitimacy tercultural youth with the era’s radical Illinois. In general, prosecutors argued and fair-mindedness of the case against politics. Bobby Seale was the chairman that the defendants were revolutionar- them. The Chicago Eight, as well as their of the Black Panthers. The sixth promi- ies who sought to use violence to tear lawyers, deduced that Julius Hoffman, nent figure was Rennie Davis, perhaps down the United States. Specifically, the judge who was trying them, was the anti-war movement’s best nuts-and- they contended that the men had suc- far from an impartial arbiter of justice; bolts organizer. cessfully conspired to produce mayhem from the trial’s opening moments Judge All of these men, as well as two less and violent confrontation—a riot—at the Hoffman made clear that he believed well-known anti-war organizers, were 1968 Democratic convention in order to them guilty and their politics unaccept- charged with conspiring to cross state discredit the American political system. able. The defendants responded to his lines to “incite, promote, encourage, Throughout the trial, Julius Hoffman, obvious bias by mocking him and refus- participate in, and carry out a riot” in the presiding judge, made clear his abso- ing to obey his orders. During the trial, Chicago during the Democratic conven- lute contempt for the defendants. The many Americans concluded that justice tion. Six of those men were also charged defendants returned the favor. was not always blind, and that politics with individually crossing state lines The Chicago Eight Conspiracy Trial could and did play a powerful role in to incite a riot in Chicago. Strikingly, was, in its time, a cause célèbre, mak- how justice was served in the United months earlier President Lyndon ing headlines week after week. The trial States. Social Education 142 The Chicago Seven defendants (formerly the Chicago Eight) at a January 1, 1969, news conference in Chicago during their trial on charges of conspiracy to riot at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. From left, standing, are: Abbie Hoffman, John Froines, Lee Weiner, Dave Dellinger, Rennie Davis and Tom Hayden. Seated is defendant Jerry Rubin, with his girlfriend, Nancy Kurshan, who was not part of the trial. (AP Photo) Abbie Hoffman, the most outspo- Democratic National Convention, to networks broadcast images of the police ken of the defendants, argued during protest primarily against the Vietnam beatings and gas attacks. During the the trial that if powerful elites used the War. Some 12,000 policemen, 6,000 weeklong protests, 668 people were justice system to persecute political dis- National Guardsmen and 6,000 sol- arrested. sidents and powerless minorities then diers were there to meet them. Chicago Some three months after the protests, Americans had the right to call out that officials, led by Mayor Richard J. Daley, following an exhaustive investigation, the injustice, even if that meant disrupting had denied all permits to the protest- National Commission on the Causes and the rule-bound proceedings of the court ers, relenting only at the last minute to Prevention of Violence issued a report, system itself. He told Judge Hoffman: allow one rally in Grant Park, just east Rights in Conflict. Its subtitle was “The “When decorum is repression, the only of the city’s downtown. During the week Chicago Police Riot.” Dan Walker, a dignity that free men have is the right to of demonstrations (many held without prominent Chicago lawyer and corpo- speak out.” His powerful and provoca- legal permission), a few hundred of the rate executive, directed the staff that pro- tive claim about the balance between 10,000 protesters taunted the police, duced the report. Walker had once been the need for civility and order and the calling them “pigs” and other deroga- a law clerk for a Supreme Court Chief right of the powerless to be heard still tory names, and hurling bottles, rocks Justice and was no radical. Nonetheless, echoes through the halls of justice and and other objects. In response to such he and his team reported: in every corridor of power in America’s provocations, and often just in disgust democracy. at protesters’ style of dress and political The nature of the [police] viewpoints, Chicago police beat or tear response [to demonstrators’ prov- Protests at the Democratic gassed many of the demonstrators, as ocations] was unrestrained and National Convention well as numerous members of the media indiscriminate police violence on In August 1968, around 10,000 people and some local residents who were sim- many occasions, particularly at had gathered in Chicago, site of the ply caught up in the disorder. Television night. That violence was made May / June 2019 143 all the more shocking by the fact tutions, including the courts, was at a low Chicago. In fact, the eight men charged that it was often inflicted upon ebb. African American activists, in par- with conspiring had not even worked persons who had broken no law, ticular, feared the police and distrusted together in planning the convention week disobeyed no order, made no the impartiality of the entire legal sys- protests. Bobby Seale, the indicted Black threat … Police violence was a tem. Anti-war demonstrators across the Panther leader, played no role in orga- fact of convention week. racial spectrum shared these misgivings. nizing the protests. He had only been What happened at the Chicago Eight trial invited by Tom Hayden to give a short The “Rights in Conflict” report, also heightened those activists’ distrust and speech to the demonstrators. That short known as the “Walker Report,” was anger, sharpening their radical critique speech, however, was incendiary. made public a couple of weeks after the of the American legal and political system. Seale gave his talk the evening after 1968 presidential election. By no means Chicago law enforcement personnel did all Americans share in that report’s On Trial had, in the words of the Walker Report, conclusions. At the tail end of 1968, the The men charged with conspiracy to launched a “police riot.” The Black American people fully agreed on very incite a riot were frustrated and appalled Panthers had long believed in “self- little. They were visibly and fiercely by the indictment brought against them defense,” by which they meant: when the divided. The Vietnam War, still raging by the federal government. Tom Hayden police launched an unprovoked attack, after more than four years, had polar- and Rennie Davis, the two most directly people had the right, even the obligation, responsible for the anti-war demonstra- to fight back “by any means necessary.” tion in Chicago, had co-authored and Thus, in the aftermath of the Chicago distributed a planning document in police’s mass beatings, Seale told his The American legal system, in May 1968 that categorically called for audience: “If a pig comes up on us and that fraught and divisive era, a peaceful, legal assembly: starts swinging a billy club and you check was under immense pressure. around and you got your piece [gun]— [T]he campaign should not plan you gotta down that pig in defense of Trust in political institutions, violence and disruption against yourself.” He went on, however, to say: including the courts, was at the Democratic convention.