Sentence By Judge Walter Meyer May 14, 1935 and Revision 1937 (Berner Obergericht)
Eventually the defendants Theodor Fischer and Silvio Schnell were sentenced by judge Walter Meyer in his verdict, while three other defendants were acquitted. The penalty was a quite symbolic fine: Fr. 50 (Fischer) and Fr. 20 (Schnell). However the defendants found guilty would have to pay a larger sum of the costs of the trial and some of the costs of the plaintiffs. Commenting on his verdict in the court, judge Walter Meyer said he was convinced by his evaluation of the testimonies of the witnesses and the statements of the experts that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion are a forgery and "Schundliteratur" that might instigate crimes by agitation against a minority.
Theodor Fischer himself and the lawyer of Silvio Schnell (Hans Ruef, Berne) immediately appealed to the Berner Obergericht which acquitted both defendants in 1937 on purely formal legal grounds, arguing that the term "Schundliteratur" of the Bernese Law is not applicable to "political publications" but only to "immoral (obscene) publications". The Berner Obergericht refused the obligation of the private plaintiffs to pay the costs of defence of the acquitted defendants explaining that "the one who circulates such sort of most vulgar instigating articles has to pay himself the costs resulting from them." Fischer had to pay Fr. 100 to the state fees of the trial (Fr. 28'000, paid by the Canton of Berne).
Read more about this topic: Berne Trial
Famous quotes containing the words meyer, walter, judge and/or sentence:
“... most reform movements in our country have been cursed by a lunatic fringe and have mingled sound ideas for social progress with utopian nonsense.”
—Agnes E. Meyer (1887–1970)
“Thy gowns, thy shoes,thy beds of roses,
Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies,
Soon break, soon wither—soon forgotten,
In folly ripe,in reason rotten.”
—Sir Walter Raleigh (1552?–1618)
“You can make the best of it and be content, or you can complain, it makes no difference. What does it matter that human beings judge the things that exist?”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)
“When I hear the hypercritical quarreling about grammar and style, the position of the particles, etc., etc., stretching or contracting every speaker to certain rules of theirs ... I see that they forget that the first requisite and rule is that expression shall be vital and natural, as much as the voice of a brute or an interjection: first of all, mother tongue; and last of all, artificial or father tongue. Essentially your truest poetic sentence is as free and lawless as a lamb’s bleat.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)