. NMT03-T0004
Volume III · Page 4
| During the course of the trial the Tribunal ruled with respect to count one "that neither the Charter of the International Military Tribunal nor Control Council Law No. 10 has defined conspiracy to commit a war crime or crime against humanity as a separate substantive crime; therefore, this Tribunal has no jurisdiction to try any defendant upon a charge of conspiracy considered as a separate substantive offense." However, the Tribunal ruled further that count one "also alleges unlawful participation in the formulation and execution of plans to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity which actually involved the commission of such crimes. We therefore cannot properly strike the whole of count one from the indictment, but, insofar as count one charges the commission of the alleged crime of conspiracy as a separate substantive offense, distinct from any war crime or crime against humanity, the Tribunal will disregard that charge." Judge Blair, in a separate opinion filed at the time of judgment, dissented from this ruling, declaring that the Tribunal should have declared that the military tribunals created under Ordinance No. 7 had jurisdiction over "conspiracy to commit" any and all crimes defined in Article II of Control Council Law No. 10. |
| Of the 14 defendants who stood trial to the end, ten were convicted on one or more counts, and four were acquitted on all counts. |
| The Justice Case was tried at the Palace of Justice in Nuernberg before Military Tribunal III. Early in June 1947, the presiding judge became ill, and for this reason the sessions of the Tribunal had to be temporarily suspended. Thereupon the Tribunal designated the other two members and the alternate member as commissioners of the Tribunal to hear the testimony of a number of available witnesses whose affidavits had been introduced in evidence by the prosecution and who had been requested for cross-examination by the defense. Accordingly, the commissioners held hearings to take the further testimony of 13 prosecution affiants on 3, 4, and 5 June 1947. The presiding judge still remained incapacitated due to severe illness. Consequently, on 19 June 1947, shortly before the beginning of the defense case, the Tribunal was reconstituted pursuant to Article II of Military Government Ordinance No. 7, and the alternate judge, who had been present throughout the sessions of the trial, replaced the incapacitated member. Hearings before the Tribunal or the commissioners of the Tribunal were held on 129 separate days. The trial, from indictment to judgment, lasted 11 months. The course of the trial and subsequent related proceedings is shown in the following table: |
