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The term show trial is a pejorative description of a type of highly Public Trial . The term was first recorded in the 1930sOED. There is a strong connotation that the Judicial authorities have already determined the Guilt of the Defendant and that the actual trial has as its only goal to present the accusation and the verdict to the public as an impressive example and as a warning. Show trials tend to be Retributive rather than Correctional Justice . Such trials can exhibit scant regard for the niceties of prior to appearing in the court-room. MOSCOW TRIALS Show trials were a significant part of Joseph Stalin 's regime. The Moscow Trials of the Great Purge period in the Soviet Union are characteristic. The authorities not only pre-determined the guilt of the Defendant s, but also orchestrated the whole trial processes. Massive campaigns in newspapers and at numerous meetings shaped the opinion of the public towards the cases. The authorities staged the actual trials meticulously. If defendants refused to "cooperate", i.e., to admit guilt for their alleged and mostly fabricated crimes, they did not go on public trial, but suffered execution nonetheless. This happened, for example during the prosecution of the so-called " Labour Peasant Party " (Трудовая Крестьянская Партия), a party invented by NKVD , which, in particular, assigned the notable economist Alexander Chayanov to it. The first solid public evidence of what really happened during the Moscow Trials came to the West through the Dewey Commission . After the Collapse Of The Soviet Union , more information became available. This discredited Walter Duranty , who claimed that these trials were actually fair. NUREMBERG TRIALS British jurist F.J.P. Veale implied, in his book "Advance to Barbarism" that the 1946 Nuremberg Trials of Nazi leaders amounted to a form of show trial, as the judgments were not rendered by a disinterested party, which is a key element of independent judicial integrity. COMBATANT STATUS REVIEW TRIBUNALS The Seton Hall study "No-hearing hearings" concluded that the current CSRT's, as used in the War on Terror, are inadequate and biased in favour of determining a suspect " and Counsel to two Guantanamo detainees, Joshua Denbeaux, Esq. and David Gratz, John Gregorek, Matthew Darby, Shana Edwards, Shane Hartman, Daniel Mann, Megan Sassaman and Helen Skinner Students of Seton Hall University School of Law Bush's War Crimes Cover-up by Nat Hentoff, , November 17, 2006 According to Associated Press Mark Denbeaux said “These were not hearings. These were shams,” and called the hearings a show trial. According to the St. Peterburgs Times and , November 30, 2006 ''If the actual trials of the detainees are as empty and shallow and pre-ordained as were the Status Review Tribunals there is every reason to be mortified at the prospect -- made real by the legislation -- that the federal courts will be frozen out of vital oversight functions. If a regular trial court proceeding were this shoddy, this unwilling to perform a truth-seeking function, this unable to achieve a fair process, the judge presiding over it would be impeached.'' Nat Hentoff commented similarly in the Village Voice : Our Own Nuremberg Trials by Nat Hentoff, Village Voice, December 17th, 2006 ''Co-author Joshua Denbeaux tells me: "The government's own documents proved that the government's claims that the prisoners were the 'worst of the worst' was a false and shameful public relations ploy . . . We hope that our reports will convince Congress to amend the Military Commissions Act and restore federal jurisdiction." If that happens, the prisoners could contest their conditions of confinement, their imprisonment, and their sentences.'' SEE ALSO
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