Name: ______
Writing Trial Questions for Mao
Honor Code Level Two
Directions:
You will need the handout Trial/Creating questions for witnesses.
You will need Mrs. Hanson’s speeches: Mao was an Effective Revolutionary and Best of Intentions: Chairman Mao.
Read and consider the charges against Mao.
Use the above documents to complete the tasks on the other side.
Due date: ______
Your WHISL class will put Chairman Mao Tse-Tung on trial for crimes against humanity.
In order to find Maoguilty of crimes against humanity, the prosecution team will have to prove that, during his reign, Mao Tse-Tung was responsible for crimes against the Chinese people including murder, extermination, torture, persecution, and infringement of human rights.
The defense team maintains that Mao is innocent and will create a defense accordingly.
Crimes against humanity, as defined by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court Explanatory Memorandum, "are particularly odious offences in that they constitute a serious attack on human dignity or grave humiliation or a degradation of one or more human beings. They are not isolated or sporadic events, but are part either of a government policy (although the perpetrators need not identify themselves with this policy) or of a wide practice of atrocities tolerated or condoned by a government or a de facto authority. Murder; extermination; torture; rape and political, racial, or religious persecution and other inhumane acts reach the threshold of crimes against humanity only if they are part of a widespread or systematic practice. Isolated inhumane acts of this nature may constitute grave infringements of human rights, or depending on the circumstances, war crimes, but may fall short of falling into the category of crimes under discussion."
Murder, as defined in common law countries, is the unlawful killing of another human being with intent (or malice aforethought), and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide (such as manslaughter). As the loss of a human being inflicts enormous grief upon the individuals close to the victim, as well as the fact that the commission of a murder deprives the victim of their worldly existence, most societies both present and in antiquity have considered it a most serious crime worthy of the harshest of punishment.
**These explanations are borrowed from
Name: ______
Task 1:
You are Mao’s defense attorney and Mao maintains that he is innocent. You will call Mao to the stand as your defense witness, so you will need a series of direct examination questions to ask him on the stand. Using Mrs. Hanson’s speeches, create five, direct examination questions for each speechthat will compel Mao to tell his story on the stand (total of ten questions).
Mao was an Effective Revolutionary speech
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Chairman Mao: Best of Intentions speech
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
Task 2:
You are a prosecuting attorney who is trying to prove that Mao is guilty of crimes against humanity. Using Mrs. Hanson’ speeches as if they are Mao’s personal testimony, create five, cross-examination questions for each speech that will cause the jurors to doubt Mao (total of ten questions).
Mao was an Effective Revolutionary speech
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Chairman Mao: Best of Intentions speech
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.