The Trial Of The Man Who Said He Was God (2 page)

Anyway, it follows from the provisions of the Act, and the special nature of the crime it’s concerned with, that customs which have become sacrosanct in criminal trials can’t be followed here. New and looser procedures are being developed and tried out. Thus in my own Trial the Prosecution was given a remarkably free hand, and the rules about what is and what isn’t admissible evidence were much relaxed. Hearsay, and the opinions of non-expert witnesses, were to a large degree permitted by the Judge. So was the leading of witnesses. Throughout, Counsel and I frequently found ourselves addressing each other directly, in a brisk ding-dong - a gross irregularity which the judge was (apparently) quite happy about.

As a gesture of even-handedness, the Judge made two concessions to the Defence. The first arose from the large number of witnesses called by the Prosecution and the varied nature of their evidence. It was ruled that I should be free to defend myself against each witness’s testimony in turn, as soon as it was given - the reason being that, if my Defence were left to the end, the Jury (and I) would have forgotten what it was all about. Thus I was able to contest the Prosecution’s arguments as they came up and were fresh in all our minds. Counsel for the Crown agreed to this arrangement on the condition that he could at any time (within reason) interrupt my Defence in order to point out its weaknesses to the Jury.

The second concession arose from the difficulty that my witnesses, though far outnumbering the Prosecution’s and far out weighing them in prestige, couldn’t be subpoenaed to appear in court. The difficulty was that they were dead. Fortunately so, let me add: if they had been around and saying now what I’m quoting them as having said, many would have exposed themselves to prosecution under the Act. All the more reason for seeking leave to cite in my Defence the recorded testimony of these people who, though dead, were (say I) among the best that ever lived; and who, in a sense, live on, more alive than ever. Quite reasonably, the Prosecution objected that their so-called evidence was inadmissible, seeing that they couldn’t be sworn and examined and cross-examined, and moreover seeing that (as everyone knows) the sayings attributed to the famous are often garbled and occasionally spurious. After some argument the Judge ruled that such material might, with discretion, be produced in court, but only as illustrations for giving shape and colour to my case and by no means as testimony for proving it. I expressed my satisfaction, inasmuch as I never dreamed of founding my case on what these or any other pundits say, but upon the experiments and practical demonstrations (helped out by visual aids) which test what they say. I pointed out to the Judge that it wasn’t belief but doubt - my daring to question dogmas and assumptions that are rarely challenged - that had landed me in the dock. My unbridled scepticism is what some of my critics call it. They’re about right.

The visual aids consisted of diagrams and sketches I had made in advance - for clarifying my case in detail - bound together in a booklet with a mirror mounted on the cover. The Judge, the Jury members and the Prosecution lawyers were each furnished with a copy. The importance of its role in the Defence can scarcely be exaggerated. I’m obliged to the authorities for their co-operation in the preparation of the booklet, and its use throughout the Trial.

The overall effect of these legal irregularities and concessions was to turn the court - Court One in London’s New Bailey - into something like a superior debating-chamber, tricked out with all the pageantry of the law. A debating-chamber which nevertheless retained full powers of determining guilt and passing the severest of sentences.

The ultimate penalty prescribed by the Act is death - death by beheading, of course, since the reintroduction of the death penalty. The sentence may, however, be reduced to imprisonment and fine if the offender publicly recants and apologizes to the outraged parties, in terms and circumstances to be decided by the Judge. The impression one is left with is that the last thing the politicians who brought in the Act wanted was a line of martyrs whose bleeding but haloed heads could be laid at their door.

Two or three more points before we get down to business.

A thing that puzzled me at the time, and may well puzzle you as you read on, is what I can only call the patchy and enigmatical performance of Sir Gerald Wilberforce, the Crown Counsel. He has a reputation for knowledge in fields that top lawyers rarely have time to cultivate, and for skill in applying it. No doubt that’s why he was chosen to prosecute. His versatility did indeed come out in the Trial. But so, mysteriously, did lost opportunities to press and follow through points that emerged to the Prosecution’s advantage, or to the Defence’s discomfiture. Not infrequently, he seemed to play into my hands. Again, though he generally put up the obligatory show of forensic vigour and aggression (and sometimes overdid it), there were occasions when he seemed to stray from his brief - to the extent of forgetting his role and the terms of the charge against me. At such times he slipped into the urbane and discursive polemic of the lecture theatre, instead of sticking to the tighter polemic of the lawcourt. It was as if Sir Gerald wasn’t sure whether he was wearing his doctoral hood or his tie-wig. The question remains: was his peculiarly mixed performance incidental; or was it deliberate, arising from a secret brief behind his brief?

The other thing that puzzled me is the trouble the Prosecution took to call witness upon witness till there were twenty-seven of them, when it could have made its case with half that number. If it had known in advance how vulnerable many of them were to prove, it would no doubt have reduced them to a carefully selected dozen. But it’s easy to be wise after a Trial without precedent. And having, of course, supplied the Defence in advance with abstracts of the testimonies of all twenty-seven, the Prosecution was committed to calling most if not all of them. Nevertheless we’re left with the question: why so many in the first place? And again the bigger question: what was the Prosecution really up to?

Even now I’m not at all sure of the answer to these two conundrums. But whatever it is, I think it belongs at the end of this write-up of the proceedings. By then, your guess will be as good as mine.

The Trial

Nobody can be said to have attained to the pinnacle of truth until a thousand sincere people have denounced him for blasphemy.

Anthony de Mello, SJ

All great truths begin as blasphemies.

George Bernard Shaw

The Charge and the Plea

COUNSEL: Your Honour, I am Gerald Wilberforce, King’s Counsellor, and I lead on behalf of the Crown in this case. My Junior at the Bar is Herbert Atkinson of the Inner Temple.

The Accused, John a-Nokes, is charged under the Act of 2002 CE with the crime of blasphemy.

I shall be calling some twenty-seven witnesses, each of whom will testify to one or more of the following essential matters - I say, matters of fact:

First, the blasphemy.
In all manner of ways John a-Nokes has insulted and brought into contempt One whom many people perceive as divine.

Second, its extreme form.
In John a-Nokes the offence peaks: for he falsely claims that he is none other than the Unique Being whom ordinary humans worship as the highest and the holiest.

Third, its dissemination.
To gain publicity for his blasphemous beliefs, he has persistently used all available means, including radio and television broadcasts, books, magazine articles and public lectures.

Fourth, the reaction.
His teachings have so outraged religious people that they have repeatedly committed such breaches of the peace as riotous assembly, arson, unlawful killings - and prima facie murder.

In applying these four criteria, Your Honour, the Prosecution sets out to prove the Accused guilty of the crime of blasphemy as defined in the Act, Sections 4, 7c, 12, and 13b.

JUDGE: How do you plead, John a-Nokes? Guilty or Not Guilty?

MYSELF: Not Guilty, Your Honour.

JUDGE: I understand that you wish to conduct your own Defence. Indeed I see that the dock has already been fitted with shelves for your books and papers. However, it’s my duty to warn you of the risk that your inexperience may hamper the presentation of your case to the Jury. Are you sure you can do justice to the evidence and the arguments that are in your favour, and can do battle with those that are not? Even at this late hour you may change your mind. There is in court a learned and able King’s Counsellor who is well prepared to take on your Defence.

MYSELF: While I’m much obliged to Your Honour, I’ve decided to defend myself, notwithstanding the risks. But I do seek Your Honour’s indulgence when, due to ignorance of court procedure and etiquette, I fail to conduct myself properly.

JUDGE: Have no fear on that score: I shall keep you in order.

MYSELF: My Defence, Your Honour, I summarize like this:

None of the four components of the Prosecution’s case against me - what Counsel calls my blasphemy, the extreme form it takes, its dissemination and the public’s reaction - none of these is resisted in principle. I’ll go along with all four once they are stripped of pejorative and prejudicial language. My Defence doesn’t consist so much in combating as in reinterpreting them, in the light of two considerations.

The first and comparatively unimportant one is that the outrage I have undoubtedly given rise to was unintentional. So far from being deliberate, it was and is much regretted. Alas, it is unavoidable if the truths I publicize are at all important - and I say they are supremely important, indeed critical, for the health and even the survival of our species. Though the Act, as I read it, does little to distinguish between offence that’s given inadvertently and offence that’s given deliberately, it’s hardly a difference which the Judge and the Jury can ignore.

The second and crucial Defence argument - the pith and substance of my case - I state baldly here. Baldly, but without rancour or complacency. Full supporting evidence will come out in the course of the Trial.

Here it is: I am the only one in court who is not guilty of blasphemy!
I accuse my accusers of this most serious crime!

It’s you who stand in the dock today!

The Prosecution Witnesses and the Defence Rebuttal

Prosecution Witness No. 1

THE POLICE OFFICER

P
reliminaries over, all is now set in court for the Trial to proceed.

Counsel for the Prosecution calls his first witness, a police officer in uniform. Prompted by Counsel, he gives evidence of arrest. He testifies how, armed with a warrant, he went to my home, where he cautioned me that anything I said was liable to be taken down and used in evidence.

COUNSEL: What was the Accused’s reaction?

OFFICER, consulting his notebook: Paying no attention to my warning, he kept bragging it was impossible to arrest him. He was a sight too big and slippery (vac... vacous? and tenous? are words I’ve got down here) for any officer of the law to handle. Apprehending this suspect would be like taking the West Wind into custody, he told me.

COUNSEL: You proved him wrong?

OFFICER: I surely did, sir. He came along quietly, and there was no trouble on the way to the police station. There, he started up again. He kept boasting that no cell was strong enough to hold him, and promised to smash down at least one wall and break out of the building. There was something I didn’t get, about taking off into space.

COUNSEL: Was he claiming to be an unusually clever magician, or perhaps a second Houdini, an escape artist of the sort you see on the stage?

OFFICER: Not really. The impression I got was that he was rather mad, and convinced he wielded some kind of divine power.

COUNSEL, to Jury: Note the words ‘divine power’. You might suppose that the Accused, content with announcing his divinity to the world in season and out of season, would let up a little in prison. But not so. Here we have indeed a blasphemer for all seasons!

[To Witness] So you decided to see whether handcuffs would curb this marvellous power?

OFFICER: That’s right, just to make sure. It seems they did. Either the power he packed wasn’t Godlike enough to unlock an ordinary pair of darbies (let alone smash walls) or else it didn’t exist at all.

COUNSEL: So what happened in the end?

OFFICER: Nothing special at all. The handcuffs soon came off, and John a-Nokes turned out to be a quite normal prisoner. Rather better behaved, I reckon, than most. But every bit as human. That stuff was just talk.

COUNSEL: There you have it all, Jury. A small man talking bigger than big.

That’s all, Officer. But stay in the box: I think he has some questions to put to you.

Defence:
My Let-out and My Let-in

MYSELF: Officer, was my conversation with you abrasive, or humorous?

OFFICER: More humorous, I’d say. Funny stuff - with an edge to it.

MYSELF: And casual too, as if something perfectly obvious were being pointed out?

OFFICER: Well, yes, in a way.

MYSELF: What made you change your mind and decide to give the impression in your testimony that I was a wild and aggressive prisoner, if not actually raving mad?