Or like Justices Franz Schlegelberger and Oswald Rothaug The Nuremberg Trials: The Justice Trial https://famous-trials.com/nuremberg/1991-alstoetter "United States of America v. Alstötter et al. ("The Justice Case") 3 T.W.C. 1 (1948), 6 L.R.T.W.C. 1 (1948), 14 Ann. Dig. 278 (1948). The Justice Trial is one of the most interesting of the …
("The Justice Case") 3 T.W.C. 1 (1948), 6 L.R.T.W.C. 1 (1948), 14 Ann. Dig. 278 (1948).
The Justice Trial is one of the most interesting of the Nuremberg trials. The trial of sixteen defendants, members of the Reich Ministry of Justice or People's and Special Courts, raised the issue of what responsibility judges might have for enforcing grossly unjust--but arguably binding--laws. The trial was the inspiration for the movie Judgment at Nuremberg. The movie presented a somewhat fictionalized view of the trial."
...
"Ingo Muller, in Hitler's Justice: The Courts of the Third Reich, provides a penetrating picture of the workings of the criminal justice system in Nazi Germany. Muller's analysis of the evidence suggests that most German judges--contrary to common opinion--were ultraconservative nationalists who were largely sympathetic to Nazi goals. The "Nazification" of German law occurred with the willing and enthusiatic help of judges, rather than over their principled objections.
Many judges appointed before the Nazi rise to power--because of the economic and social circles that judges were drawn from--had views that were quite compatible with the Nazi party. "
...
"Most German judges over-identified with the Nazi regime. They came to see themselves as fighters on the internal battlefront, with the responsibility to punish "the enemy within."
Richard A. Posner, federal court of appeals judge and one of the most astute observers of the legal scene, noted that it is not only German judges that might over-identify with popular causes. In The New Republic, Posner wrote:
"Perhaps in the fullness of time the growing of marijuana plants, the "manipulation" of financial markets, the bribery of foreign government officials, the facilitating of the suicide by the terminally ill, and the violation of arcane regulations governing the financing of political campaigns will come to be no more appropriate objects of criminal punishment than "dishonoring the race." Perhaps not; but [the story of the German judges] can in any event help us to see that judges should not be eager enlisters in popular movements of the day, or allow themselves to become so immersed in a professional culture that they are oblivious to the human consequences of their decisions.""
The Justice Cases and it's movie treatment will introduce many to the implications of the US Supreme Court decision in Buck v. Bell from over a century ago. That has never been repealed, though some sharp edges were rounded off in the 1940's. That decision was raised as a defense to 'Crimes Against Humanity' charges in the trials. Legitimately. Buck v. Bell has been relied upon and upheld in SCOTUS decisions as recently as 2001. And has implications for the present and future of sterilization, euthanasia, biotech, newgenics, designer babies, even transhumanism:
Buck v. Bell, American Eugenics, and the Bad Man Test: Putting
Limits on Newgenics in the 21st Century
Minnesota Journal of Law & Inequality, January, 2020
Or like Justices Franz Schlegelberger and Oswald Rothaug
The Nuremberg Trials: The Justice Trial
https://famous-trials.com/nuremberg/1991-alstoetter
"United States of America v. Alstötter et al.
("The Justice Case") 3 T.W.C. 1 (1948), 6 L.R.T.W.C. 1 (1948), 14 Ann. Dig. 278 (1948).
The Justice Trial is one of the most interesting of the Nuremberg trials. The trial of sixteen defendants, members of the Reich Ministry of Justice or People's and Special Courts, raised the issue of what responsibility judges might have for enforcing grossly unjust--but arguably binding--laws. The trial was the inspiration for the movie Judgment at Nuremberg. The movie presented a somewhat fictionalized view of the trial."
...
"Ingo Muller, in Hitler's Justice: The Courts of the Third Reich, provides a penetrating picture of the workings of the criminal justice system in Nazi Germany. Muller's analysis of the evidence suggests that most German judges--contrary to common opinion--were ultraconservative nationalists who were largely sympathetic to Nazi goals. The "Nazification" of German law occurred with the willing and enthusiatic help of judges, rather than over their principled objections.
Many judges appointed before the Nazi rise to power--because of the economic and social circles that judges were drawn from--had views that were quite compatible with the Nazi party. "
...
"Most German judges over-identified with the Nazi regime. They came to see themselves as fighters on the internal battlefront, with the responsibility to punish "the enemy within."
Richard A. Posner, federal court of appeals judge and one of the most astute observers of the legal scene, noted that it is not only German judges that might over-identify with popular causes. In The New Republic, Posner wrote:
"Perhaps in the fullness of time the growing of marijuana plants, the "manipulation" of financial markets, the bribery of foreign government officials, the facilitating of the suicide by the terminally ill, and the violation of arcane regulations governing the financing of political campaigns will come to be no more appropriate objects of criminal punishment than "dishonoring the race." Perhaps not; but [the story of the German judges] can in any event help us to see that judges should not be eager enlisters in popular movements of the day, or allow themselves to become so immersed in a professional culture that they are oblivious to the human consequences of their decisions.""
If past is prologue...
The movie, Judgment At Nuremberg, is available to view for free at Archive.org Well worth the viewing:
https://archive.org/details/movie-judgment-at-nuremberg-1961
The Justice Cases and it's movie treatment will introduce many to the implications of the US Supreme Court decision in Buck v. Bell from over a century ago. That has never been repealed, though some sharp edges were rounded off in the 1940's. That decision was raised as a defense to 'Crimes Against Humanity' charges in the trials. Legitimately. Buck v. Bell has been relied upon and upheld in SCOTUS decisions as recently as 2001. And has implications for the present and future of sterilization, euthanasia, biotech, newgenics, designer babies, even transhumanism:
Buck v. Bell, American Eugenics, and the Bad Man Test: Putting
Limits on Newgenics in the 21st Century
Minnesota Journal of Law & Inequality, January, 2020
https://scholarship.law.umn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1622&context=lawineq
Buck v. Bell: Due Process of Law by Walter Berns
Political Research Quarterly, December 1, 1953
https://sci-hub.se/https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/106591295300600409
It's all interconnected. A tangled web.