The Trial of the Chicago 7

1969. With the new Richard Nixon administration in the White House, US Attorney General John Mitchell proceeds to lay charges against Tom Hayden and Rennie Davis, leaders of Students for Democratic Society, Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, leaders of the Youth International Parties (Yippies or Young Hippies), David Dellinger, leader of Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam (The Mobe), individuals Lee Weiner and John Froines, and Bobby Seale, National Chair of the Black Panthers, under the never used Rap Brown Law: for "conspiracy to cross state lines in order to incite violence" for their roles in the protest outside the National Democratic Convention (DNC) in Chicago the summer previous, the protest which turned violent. The protest was against the United States' escalating participation in the Vietnam War, the DNC chosen for then President Lyndon B. Johnson's doubling of troops almost overnight and the presumptive Democratic nominee for President, Hubert H. Humphrey, continuing such if elected. In part as they are using the same legal team of William Kunstler and Leonard Weinglass, the first seven are deemed the Chicago 7, with Seale the outsider for many reasons, including he being the only one of the eight a person of color. If convicted, they could serve a maximum penalty of ten years in prison. While the eight are aware of each other, some had never met before the protest and rarely collaborated. As such, the lead prosecutor, Richard Schultz, as does everyone else involved in this case, is aware that the charges and thus the trial are politically motivated rather than a matter of justice under the law, with each of the eight of the eight hundred or so protesters chosen for very specific political reasons, and as former Attorney General under Johnson, Ramsey Clark, had no intention of laying charges after the Justice Department's review.