On November 21, 1945, in the Palace of Justice at Nuremberg, Germany, Justice Robert H. Jackson, Chief of Counsel for the United States, made his opening statement to the International Military Tribunal in Case No. 1, November 21, 1945:
That four great nations, flushed with victory and stung with injury stay the hand of vengeance and voluntarily submit their captive enemies to the judgment of the law is one of the most significant tributes that Power has ever paid to Reason
Justice Robert H. Jackson, the chief United States prosecutor, delivered his closing argument to the International Military Tribunal (IMT) at Nuremberg on July 26, 1946. This statement has been deemed a forensic masterpiece. In these filmed excerpts, the scenes of Jackson in a long necktie are trial footage; the scenes of Jackson in tuxedo were filmed after hours, in the empty courtroom, for the U.S. historical record:
In eight months- a short time as state trials go- we have introduced evidence which embraces as vast and varied a panorama of events as has ever been compressed within the framework of a litigation. It is impossible in summation to do more than outline with bold strokes the vitals of this trial’s made and melancholy record, which will live as the historical text of the Twentieth Century’s shame and depravity. ...If you were to say of these men that they are not guilty, it would be as true to say there has been no war, there are no slain, there has been no crime.
Nuremberg Case by Whitney R. Harris, a prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trial, authored one to the first books on the subject. His book "Tyranny on Trial" was published in 1954.
The Introduction of the book was authored by Justice Robert H. Jackson, the chief American Prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trial (1945-1946). His letter was one of the last comments by Jackson as he died in October of 1954.
He spoke by video (February 2010) to the Harris Institute Conference at the Brookings Institution, endorsing the launch of a Convention on Crimes Against Humanity.
Tribute to Whitney R. Harris from John Q. Barrett.
This video shows Whitney Harris reading the letter before an audience at the Robert H. Jackson Center in October 2001.
Chief Prosecutor for the United States in The Einsatzgruppen Case, which the Associated Press called "the biggest murder trial in history."
Twenty-two defendants were charged with murdering over a million people. He was only twenty-seven years old. It was his first case.
