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Chaos In The Courtroom, Controlling Disruptive Defendants And Contumacious Counsel In War Crimes Trials, Michael P. Scharf

Faculty Publications

During the eight month-long Dujail trial (October 2005-August 2006), Saddam Hussein, his seven co-defendants, and their dozen lawyers regularly disparaged the judges, interrupted witness testimony with outbursts, turned cross examination into political diatribes, and staged frequent walk-outs and boycotts. Drawn from the author's September 2006 lecture to the staff of the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, this article examines some of history's previous messy trials and the strategies judges have employed with varying degrees of success to respond to disruptive conduct by trial participants. It then describes the various tactics employed by the …