Arguments Over Genocide Dominate Stanford Protester Trial Hearing

A hearing in the case of pro-Palestinian protesters arrested for breaking into and vandalizing the Stanford University president’s office was marked Tuesday by heated discussions over the word genocide.

In the court session focused on pretrial motions — which attorneys and the judge use to lay out the ground rules for a trial — a debate over whether the term genocide should be allowed during the proceedings elicited the most impassioned arguments from defense attorneys and a deputy district attorney alike.

At one point, defense attorneys and the county prosecutor verbally sparred over whether Israel’s actions in Gaza being characterized as a genocide is a settled fact.

“Using the word genocide is the same as saying the sky is blue. It is what it is,” Leah Gillis, a defense attorney in the case, said in court.

But Robert Baker, the prosecutor heading up the case for the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office, said Gillis’ comment was offensive.

“That’s absolutely absurd. And I think there’s people who were murdered in World War II that would probably think that the word genocide is a lot different than just the word blue,” Baker said, raising his voice.

The flashpoint between attorneys in court stemmed from discussions on Tuesday about one of the central fights in the case thus far: the motivations of the protesters during their action on June 5, 2024.

Gillis and other defense attorneys representing the five former and current Stanford students in the trial have emphasized in court filings and in court on Tuesday that their clients’ actions were motivated by what they believe is a genocide in Gaza, and their protest was aimed at saving Palestinian lives.

The prosecution has questioned the validity of those arguments and has tried to limit the scope of what the jury could be influenced by during the trial.

“It’s very clear the whole point of this argument is to prevent the defense from blaming a country that is currently litigating that very point,” Baker said of Israel’s dispute over its actions being labeled as genocide. “It is currently the subject of litigation in the United Nations.”

While Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Hanley Chew ultimately agreed to allow the use of the word genocide, he asked defense attorneys to be “very judicious” about it, and warned that if he felt they overused it, he would change his mind.

“I’m not going to exclude the use of the word genocide, but I don’t want the word genocide paraded throughout this trial. And if it is, I will exclude it,” Chew said. “As all of you have pointed out, the word genocide is very powerful and is very politically charged. And if I feel that the parties are exploiting that word with their own use … I will exclude its further use.”

The courtroom at the Hall of Justice in San José was packed with several dozen people on Tuesday, nearly all of whom appeared to be supporting the protesters and donning keffiyehs, patterned black and white scarves that have become a visible signifier of Palestinian solidarity and resistance.

The group of what was 12 protesters said on social media at the time they entered the university offices that they wanted Stanford leaders to “address their role in enabling and profiting from the ongoing genocide in Gaza.”

The action came amid a series of larger campus demonstrations aimed at pressuring the school to divest from companies that support Israel’s military bombardment in Gaza.

Defense attorneys emphasized that international bodies and experts, such as the International Association of Genocide Scholars and an independent United Nations commission, have labeled Israel’s actions genocide.

Using a word like genocide is “setting the stage” for what was in the minds of their clients when they took their actions, Gillis said.

The prosecution asked the court to bar all use of the word genocide, arguing it is “inflammatory” and could prejudice the case, and also sought to exclude explanations of the motives of the protesters during testimony.

Baker said the motives of the protesters are irrelevant to a jury trying to decide whether they are guilty of felony vandalism and conspiracy charges.

“If they were protesting the Gaza War, if they were protesting the 2020 election, if they were protesting President Biden, if they were protesting President Trump, it makes no difference,” Baker said.

“They’re going to transform this trial into a political forum rather than a search for the truth and determinative facts,” Baker said. “I think there needs to be significant limitations to sanitize what is presented to a jury.”

Judge Chew took a middle stance in his ruling.

“I’m not going to do a blanket prohibition on defendants speaking about their motivation. However, I will severely limit that ability to speak about motivation,” Chew said, noting he would ban any hearsay evidence.

Chew also decided to exclude, for now, testimony from a professor of human rights whom Gillis argued the defense should be able to use during the trial as an expert witness, to help establish facts around “Palestine and the genocide and the motivations of these young people in their request to Stanford to divest.”

At one point during the hearing, some people in the audience of the courtroom chuckled, sighed or let out brief comments in response to arguments from Baker, prompting Chew to later issue a warning.

“This is the court, and you should act in accordance with the fact that you are in a courtroom. If there are any additional outbursts, I will clear this courtroom. You understand that?” Chew said.

Hunter Taylor-Black, one of the defendants, said the trial amounts to “political persecution.”

Taylor-Black said the case from prosecutors feels “meant to discourage future student activists from acting on the things they believe in in the ways that student activists have acted in the past.”

While students at campuses across the country were arrested last spring for Gaza-related demonstrations, few of those arrests resulted in felony charges or trials, making the Stanford case unusual. And defense attorneys argued earlier this year that the District Attorney’s office was overcharging the case.

The five defendants chose to go to trial last month, after six other protesters who were charged in the case entered into mental health diversion programs, or indicated they would take a court-offered deal that would include pleading guilty to misdemeanor charges, with a pathway to potential dismissal.

One other protester, Jack Richardson, served as a witness for prosecutors in a grand jury indictment and is now enrolled in a youth deferred entry of judgment program. Such programs allow young people to eventually have a charge dismissed if they do not commit crimes while free, and often include rehabilitative requirements like counseling and community service.

Germán González, also a defendant in the trial, said after the court hearing that it was disheartening to hear “genocide denialism” in the courtroom.

“Throughout this sort of fear and anxiety that I do feel in the courtroom, I am just reminding myself that it is a privilege,” González said. “Nothing that happens in a courtroom or what happened to me is as severe as what’s happening to the Palestinians, who are facing genocide right now.”

More pretrial conferences are scheduled this week, including a hearing over whether or not the provost of Stanford, Jenny Martinez, will be called to testify as a witness.

Jury selection in the trial is set to begin in early January.