Word: trespasses
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Judge Edward M. Viola ruled that arrested demonstrators must stand trial on criminal trespass charges, despite Harvard's formal request that the charges be dropped...
April 20: Defense attorneys for the 174 accused demonstrators asked trial judge M. Edward Viola to drop criminal trespass charges against their clients. The attorneys argued that the students had not heard warnings to leave the building before students had a chance to get out by themselves, and that the prosecution could not prove that all those arrested had actually been inside University Hall...
Kinzel's study is further proof of a contemporary psychological premise -advanced by such theorists as Northwestern University's Edward T. Hall and Medical Center of Mount Zion's Mardi J. Horowitz-that man unconsciously projects a sphere of personal space that admits no trespass by strangers. Whenever this zone is penetrated without permission, the occupant responds by defending it, often with violence. Kinzel believes that the dimensions of the circle may provide a clue to the violence potential of its inhabitant: the larger the circle, the more intolerant its inhabitant to invasion of his personal space...
These beliefs do not constitute a legal defense, of course. "The way our system of justice works," Flym explains, "you can't address yourself to questions not relevant to the specific charge." Nonetheless, Flym says that the charge of criminal trespass could be profitably addressed at two levels. First, whether those inside were ever actually forbidden to be there by someone in authority; second and more important, whether anybody indeed had the authority to tell them to leave. "An argument with some validity," Flym says, "would have been that the trustees do not have any authority to take such action...
Therefore, "given the system as it exists, criminal trespass was not an inappropriate charge. But criminal law needs to be reformed. It really needs to be reformed more than any other body of law today. The criminal process is not intended to look a the big picture. It distorts reality by focusing on a small corner. It therefore works badly in these political-legal cases because it doesn't permit taking into account the motivations of the actors in the drama." But once again, Flym the political idealist clashes with Flym the hard-nosed lawyer. "I guess it would...