MOTION ON BEHALF OF DEFENDANT HESS FOR
AN EXAMINATION BY A NEUTRAL EXPERT WITH
REFERENCE TO HIS MENTAL COMPETENCE AND
CAPACITY TO STAND TRIAL
I
TO: The General Secretary of the International Military Tribunal,
Nuremberg.
On behalf of the Defendant Hess I hereby make the following
application in my capacity of counsel:
A. That a medical expert be asked by the Court to make a thorough
examination of the Defendant Hess and to report in an exhaustive
manner as to whether the said defendant is
a) mentally competent,
b) capable of being tried, and to summon the medical expert as a
witness at the Trial.
The expert should be named to the Tribunal by the medical faculty
of the University of Zürich or, if a competent expert should not
be available there, by the medical faculty of Lausanne.
B. If the Court has already appointed an expert,
that the expert applied for and appointed as in I A. be appointed and
summoned to act together with the Court's own expert at the
examination, and to testify in Court.
C. In the event of the Court's having already in the meantime
ordered a report by a board of experts, that this panel be completed
by the appointment, as well as the expert mentioned in I A., of
another expert also to be named by the medical faculty of Zürich
or Lausanne.
II
. . . .
Reasons:
Re I. The undersigned Counsel has grave doubts as to the mental
responsibility and the fitness for Trial of the Defendant Hess owing
to defendant's behavior during his numerous talks with him, and owing
to the numerous publications, past and present, in the German and
foreign press about the "Hess Case". The defendant is not
in a position to give his Counsel any information whatsoever
regarding the crimes imputed to him in the Indictment. The expression
of his face is lifeless and his attitude towards his Counsel and in
view of the impending Trial is the reverse of every natural reaction
of any other defendant.