Table of Contents

Introduction

Part One: Motion Will Be Denied

Part Two: Seale

Part Three: A Demonstration Here, A Demonstration There

Part Four: The Struggle for the Laugh in the Courtroom

Part Five: The Struggle for the Spirit of the Courtroom: The Defense's Case

Part Six: The Struggle for the Soul of the Nation

Part Seven: The Jury Hearing

Afterword: Constitutional Morality Play

About the Author

John Schultz (1932-2017) was professor emeritus of fiction writing and a member of the graduate faculty in fiction writing at Columbia College in Chicago. He wrote novellas, short stories, and several books of non-fiction. He was the creator of the Story Workshop method of writing instruction which he practiced at Columbia, and the founder of Story Workshop Institute, which brought the same methods to elementary and secondary classrooms.

Schultz covered the 1968 Democratic National Convention for the Evergreen Review and wrote No One Was Killed, an account of both the convention and the clashes between antiwar protesters and Chicago police. He also observed the subsequent trial of eight participants for conspiracy and inciting riot, which he recounted in Motion Will Be Denied, republished as The Chicago Conspiracy Trial. Both books are published by the University of Chicago Press.

Reviews

A beautiful, compelling, tear-jerking, mind-boggling book.--William Burroughs "Los Angeles Times" A masterful recapitulation of these anomalous events. . . . All politically literate Americans should read [it].--Timothy Sullivan, author of Unequeal Verdicts "Kirkus Reviews" If Schultz has offered us a drama that is a metaphor for this society itself, then his intensive concern with the jurors and their own special agony is its climax. His probe into their consciences--the play within the play--is a probe into the American conscience.--David Graber "Los Angeles Times" This work, aside from being a profound study of fear, is investigative journalism in its highest sense.--Studs Terkel "Los Angeles Times" "Schultz has written one of the few great trial books of our time. Taking the reader inside a uniquely American political show-trial, he demonstrates just how fragile our courts are, and how the massive poweer of the federal government can easily derail justice. . . . Any reader looking for a quick course in how a criminal trial can go wrong would do well to read The Chicago Conspiracy Trial."--Timothy Sullivan, author of Unequeal Verdicts