For their part, of course, the defendants veered from standard courtroom procedure as much as the Judge did-although in a more bening direction. The book is a million laughs as it describes the opening sections of the trial, with Abbie Hoffman baring his belly to the jury and the Judge solemnly noting, "let the record show that Defendant Weiner is laughing at me as hard as he can."

By the end of the trial, the disruptions had taken on an entirely different tone. The book's most important function may be in showing the progression from the Yippic outbursts of the first few days to the bitter protests of all the defendants at the end of the trial.

The change that seizes Kunstler is perhaps the most serious indicator. As the trial gets underway. Kunstler uses the tactics he had tested in years of civil rights litigation in the South. He fights stubbornly, but within the bounds of accepted procedure and politeness. Five months later, after he has watched Seale gagged and then carried off, after all his objections have been overruled, after Hoffman has screened out most of the defense witnesses, Kunstler is a new lawyer. He explodes in early February, after the Judge has decided that Ralph Abernathy cannot testify:

I know that this is not a fair trial. I know it in my heart. If I have to lose my license to practice law and if I have to go to jail, I can't think of a better cause...

At the end, as Hoffman is doling out contempt charges and saying that lawyers "who are waiting in the wings" are responsible for the rise in crime. Kunstler finishes with a plea that his fate "not deter other lawyers throughout the country who, in the difficult days that lie ahead, will be asked to defend clients against a steadily increasing governmental encroachment upon their most fundamental liberties..."

Since the trial has ended, legal scholars and the Supreme Court have mulled over the issue of courtroom decorum. It is, in fact, perfectly reasonable to ask whether the U. S. judicial system will be able to survive the calculated histrionics of men like Abbie Hoffman. But the metamorphosis of Kunstler and his clients shows that the Chicago trial was simply not the place where that issue could be decided. By the time the confrontation took shape, the Judge had so stripped away the vestiges of fairness that it is impossible to say whether better trials might work.

If Seale had been able to defend himself, if Clark were allowed to testify, if the defendants had been given a fair chance, maybe the outcome would have been different. Maybe not. Either way, the answer will not come from Julius Hoffman's courtroom.