Editing Judges' Trial (section)

{{Short description|Third Nuremberg Trial, end of WWII}}
{{refimprove|date=February 2013}}
{{Expand German|Juristenprozess|date=January 2014}}
[[File:Justice Case Testimonial.jpg|right|thumb|A witness testifies in the Judges' Trial]]
[[File:View of Judges' trial from visitors' gallery.jpg|thumb|View of Judges' trial from visitors' gallery]]
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The '''Judges' Trial''' ({{Langx|de|Juristenprozess}}; or, the '''Justice Trial''', or, officially, '''''The United States of America vs. Josef Altstötter, et al.''''') was the third of the 12 trials for [[war crime]]s the [[United States|U.S.]] authorities held in their occupation zone in [[Germany]] in [[Nuremberg]] after the end of [[World War II]]. These twelve trials were all held before U.S. military courts, not before the [[International Military Tribunal]], but took place in the same rooms at the [[Palace of Justice (Nuremberg)|Palace of Justice]]. The twelve U.S. trials are collectively known as the "[[Subsequent Nuremberg Trials]]" or, more formally, as the "Trials of War Criminals before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals" (NMT).

The defendants in this case were 16 German jurists and lawyers. Nine had been officials of the [[Reich Ministry of Justice]], the others were prosecutors and judges of the [[Sondergerichte|Special Courts]] and [[People's Court (German)|People's Courts]] of [[Nazi Germany]]. They were—among other charges—held responsible for implementing and furthering the Nazi "racial purity" program through the eugenic and racial laws.

The judges in this case, held in Military Tribunal III, were [[Carrington T. Marshall]] (presiding judge), former Chief Justice of the [[Supreme Court of Ohio]]; [[James T. Brand]], Associate Justice of the [[Supreme Court of Oregon]]; Mallory B. Blair, formerly judge of the [[Texas Courts of Appeals|Third Court of Appeals of Texas]]; and [[Justin Woodward Harding]] of the Bar of the State of Ohio as an alternate judge. Marshall had to retire because of illness on June 19, 1947, at which point Brand became president and Harding a full member of the tribunal. The Chief of Counsel for the Prosecution was [[Telford Taylor]]; his deputy was [[Charles M. LaFollette]]. The [[indictment]] was presented on January 4, 1947; the trial lasted from March 5 to December 4, 1947. Ten of the defendants were found guilty; four received sentences of lifetime imprisonment (all four were released by 1957), and six received prison sentences of varying lengths (five, seven or 10 years; all but one, who died in 1950, were released by 1951). Four persons were acquitted of all charges.