◆ SpookStack

Typical, perhaps, of what may be expected to be the reaction of the court, is the fact that the firrt defense witness called was ter- minated by Judge Hoffman without being allowed to testify. Edward Sparling, President Emeritus of Roosevelt University, had been sub- poenaed by the defense to testify regarding a citizens report which found Chicago police guilty of "brutallzing" peace demonstrators in -April 1968. (This was, of courme, months before the violence connect- ed with the Dernocratk National Convention. ) Sparling was chairman of the citizens committee which accused the police of "brutalizing some demonstrators without provocation. '' The defense maintained that it was in reaction to thi8 "brutalizing" that the defendants undertook pro- tective measures before the Convention began in August 1968. Those measures included holding karate practice sessions, instructing pro- testere to bring helmets, etc. Government witnesses had cited these measures as evidence that the deferdants had intended to cause vie- lence at the Convention. *. ' The jury was shown a film of police clubbing antiwar protes- .4* .- . - ,, t e r s in Grant Park. .I. On 10 December, a woman mymber of the British Parliament testified regarding her experience outside the Conrad Hilton. Hotel on 28 August;l968, that police picked her up and:threw her into the police wagon ,when, upon being told by them. "to move along" she replied: "I'm just talking to these young people." The woman, who addressed Judge Hoffman as "My Lord" and told him "Just call me Anne", put on quite a show in the courtroom. She insisted upon being furnished a Bible to swear on, despite Judge Hoffman's statement that there was none in court and that none was necessary; and subsequently demonetrated, in a clear voice, how she had stood on tiptoe in the paddy wagon and sung "We Shall OVercomd" out of the paddy wagon window. A policeman on the outride sprayed mace in hdr face, she said. Judge Hoffman repeatedly cautioned her not to embellish her testimony with personal opinion and personal objections. Also on 10 December, Cornel1 graduate student Sarah Diamant, who said she went to Chicago during the Convention to take film for her doctoral dissertation comparing nineteenth century abolitionists with current student activists, was put on the stand as the sixth de- fense witness to testify about police action in Grant Park and outside the Conrad Hilton Hotel on 28 August. According to the witness, she, _ I - -- . .. ' .*'. .. Rl--.. - A. h - I . .