Litigation
Cal. Litig. VOLUME 37, ISSUE 2, AUGUST 2024
Content
- A Drink With Perry
- Chair's Farewell: a Look Back At the 2023-24 Term
- Courtroom or Conference Room: Considerations For Jury Trials V. Arbitration
- Editor's Foreword: We Thank and Excuse Paul Dubow
- Inside This Issue
- Interview With United States District Judge Rita F. Lin
- McLe Audits
- PAST SECTION CHAIRS & EDITORS-IN-CHIEF
- Proposition 65: the Ubiquitous, Yet Invisible Litigation
- SECTION OFFICERS & EDITORIAL BOARD
- Survival Actions After the 2021 Amendment To Code of Civil Procedure Section 377.34:
- Table of Contents
- The Civil Case Against O.J. Simpson
- The Shrinking Shelter of Relief From Jury Trial Waivers
- Understanding Key Distinctions In California State and Federal Privilege Law
- Your Face Belongs To Us: a Secretive Startup's Quest To End Privacy As We Know It
- Socrates's Trial
SOCRATES’S TRIAL
Written by James J. Brosnahan*
He was not the first defendant in a criminal case to receive the death penalty, but he so captured the minds of thinkers in Western Civilization that symbolically he was the first to be punished for saying, thinking, and teaching the young to question the world. The year was 399 B.C. The place, Athens. The defendant, Socrates. A philosopher who challenged his fellow Athenians to develop virtue, seek truth, and question all aspects of life. Governmental authorities can only stand so much of that type of challenge to their authority. His trial began a period of 2,400 years during which legal confrontations of every kind were resolved in courts. History is filled with amazing tales, incredible confrontations, and historic turning points captured in the archaeology of courtroom records ancient and modern.
SOCRATES’S TRIAL
Socrates was born around 470 B.C. He was brilliant. Plato declared that no one was wiser than Socrates. Early in life, Socrates distinguished himself as brave in three military expeditions during the Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.). He distinguished himself for his courage at Delphi. Later, he decided on a life of questioning and focused himself and his students on what is truth. His incessant probing irritated some powerful officials in Athens. Evidently, their truth differed from Socrates’s truth. Socrates’s brilliance resisted fashion the wellspring for all powerful politicians. Questioning everything can irritate powerful people and it did in Socrates’s case.