Harry 39;s Free Trial

[Ene Vinson]

InHarry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry faces a trial for having committed an act of Underage Magic outside of the confines of Hogwarts. Elements in the Ministry succeed in moving both the venue and the time of the trial at short notice.

What were their goals in doing so? Specifically, were they hoping to try Harry in absentia / have him found in contempt? Were they simply trying to undermine his chances of having his witnesses in attendance, damaging his prospects of winning the trial?

To get Harry to miss the trial. I think that trial in absentia is very much what they were aiming for. The trial is at 8am. The Ministry had only attempted to contact Harry earlier that very same morning.

You don't change a trial at that short notice if you legitimately want the accused to get there. The letter given at unreasonably short notice was just to allow the Ministry to cover their backsides. They didn't actually want Harry there. The letter was just an exercise in bureaucracy so that the Ministry can blame Harry for not being at his trial. If they notified him in advance then they can claim that they acted in good faith, even they in fact didn't.

Harry wouldn't have been there to defend himself. Fudge could've told his own unchallenged version of the story. Harry's expulsion would've been a formality. By the time Harry turned up at 9 the decision would already have been made. Mr Weasley realises this as soon as he hears that the time has changed, which is why he and Harry run down to the courtroom in a blind panic.

To get Dumbledore to miss the trial. I agree that the Ministry wanted Dumbledore to be absent as well. Their strategy seems to have been the same for Dumbledore as it was for Harry. Namely, "send a cursory owl, don't expect them to turn up on time, hold the trial without them". In both cases, the plan went awry. Fudge was unpleasantly surprised to see Dumbledore turn up, just as he was with Harry.

To make Harry look bad to the wider wizarding community. Harry's trial wasn't just important in terms of kicking Harry out of Hogwarts. It was an attempt to discredit Harry in the minds of the wizarding community. If Harry doesn't even turn up to his trial then that gives the Ministry the opportunity to present him as a reckless criminal in The Daily Prophet. This would cause people to doubt his story that Voldemort was back. Hermione thought that they were waiting until after the trial to really lay into Harry.

This suggests a coordinated plan between the Ministry and Prophet to use the trial to tarnish Harry's reputation. Tricking Harry into missing his trial would cast him not only as a trouble-maker and a convicted criminal but as a waster. It makes him look careless. Cue damaging headlines in the morning Prophet.

To intimidate Harry should he turn up. If Harry should manage to get the message and attend the trial, the presence of the full Wizengamot is there to unnerve him. Instead of a more informal discussion Harry has to face a full court hearing. Instead of being interviewed by Madame Bones he has to address the full 50-strong Wizengamot. Instead of sitting in the relative comfort of Madame Bones' office he has to sit in a cold and imposing courtroom which hasn't been used for years. Everything from the size of the room to chains on the chair to the gowns of the Wizengamot to the formality of proceedings is meant to scare Harry, should he turn up. The fact that it is trial by Wizengamot is also a surprise to Harry, which only multiplies the intimidation factor. This surprise and (after-the-event) anxiety is reflected by Mr Weasley after the trial.

To introduce Harry to the Department of Mysteries. It's difficult to be too sure on this point. Voldemort and the Death Eaters did eventually try and lure Harry back to the Department of Mysteries. The fact that he'd already been past the black door at the entrance on his way down to the trial eventually proved crucial with Harry working out the true location in his repetitive dreams. Whether the trial was purposefully moved to show Harry the Department is perhaps uncertain. Voldemort was trying to get the prophecy by other means at that point. Luring Harry wasn't yet part of his agenda. On the other hand, senior Death Eaters like Lucius Malfoy were well placed to influence Fudge's agenda, whether by the Imperius Curse or (more likely) by buying access through generous donations.

Knowing the importance of the prophecy and the importance of Harry Mr Weasley briefly wonders whether the Death Eaters might have a secret agenda in moving the hearing venue. Then he discounts the prospect. He was probably wise to do so.

H. Mitchell Caldwell teaches Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure as well as trial advocacy courses and serves as advisor of the law school's highly successful interschool trial teams. Before joining the Pepperdine faculty, he was a trial prosecutor in Santa Barbara and Riverside counties.

Professor Caldwell routinely represents condemned prisoners in the appeals of their death sentences before both the California Supreme Court and US Supreme Court. He has written extensively in the area of criminal procedure, trial advocacy, and the death penalty and is the co-author of Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury (1998), And the Walls Came Tumbling Down (2004) and The Devil's Advocates (Fall 2006). This popular series of books celebrates significant jury trials and the lawyers who tried the cases. Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury was selected by the Los Angeles Times as a best non-fiction selection. Caldwell also co-authored The Art and Science of Trial Advocacy, and Case Files for Basic Trial Advocacy, Criminal Pretrial Advocacy and Mock Trials, all for use at the law school level.

Professor Caldwell has received several teaching honors including the 2012 Howard A. White Award along with several Luckman teaching awards, and in 2000 received the Richard Jacobson Award as the premier trial advocacy teacher in the nation

Because of the amount of pretrial publicity in and around San Angelo, the Tom Green County district attorney and defense attorneys sought a change of venue. Judge Drummond W. Bartlett of McLennan County offered to move the trial to Waco. Bartlett also agreed to allow a KWTX-TV camera to broadcast the proceedings from the balcony of his 54th State District Court. The previous summer, he had allowed John Bennett of the Waco Tribune-Herald staff to experiment with unobtrusive courtroom photography. Advocates of cameras in the courtroom argued that television equipment could be unobtrusive, thereby not damaging to the decorum of the process.

The title of this article is conjectural. Although it is based on canonical information, the actual name is a conjecture and may be supplanted at any time by additional information released from canonical sources. If this occurs, please move this page to the appropriate title.

Disciplinary hearing of Harry PotterEvent informationLocationCourtroom Ten, British Ministry of Magic[1]Date(s)12 August 1995[2]Participant(s)Harry Potter (the defence)[1]Albus Dumbledore (witness for the defence)[1]Arabella Figg (witness)[1]Amelia Bones (interrogator)[1]Cornelius Fudge (interrogator)[1]Dolores Umbridge (interrogator)[1]Percy Weasley (court scribe)[1]DescriptionHarry Potter was called for a hearing for using underage magic[1][Source]

The disciplinary hearing of Harry Potter occurred before the Wizengamot on 12 August 1995 as the boy wizard was charged for using underage magic outside of school, that is, he was forced to conjure a Patronus Charm to save himself and his cousin Dudley Dursley from Dementors in the Muggle town of Little Whinging ten days earlier.[3][2]

As this hearing took place amid the Ministry of Magic's attempts to discredit Albus Dumbledore and Harry Potter, there was some bias against Harry's case in hopes to expel the boy and prevent him from claiming that Lord Voldemort had returned, and Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge was determined to convict Harry for this crime. Despite this, Harry was cleared of all charges during the hearing.[1]

On the night of 2 August 1995, while Harry and his cousin Dudley Dursley were returning home, two Dementors appeared in Little Whinging. To save himself and Dudley, Harry performed the Patronus Charm and successfully repelled the Dementors.[3] However, being an underage wizard, Harry was not supposed to perform magic outside Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

As a result, he was formally accused of performing underage magic and was expelled from school by the Ministry of Magic. However, after Albus Dumbledore's intervention, the expulsion was retracted and changed to a disciplinary hearing which would take place ten days later, on 12 August at 9 am, at the British Ministry of Magic's headquarters, before the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement Amelia Bones was in her office.[2]

Cornelius Fudge, then-Minister for Magic, was attempting to discredit Harry and Dumbledore's claims about the return of Lord Voldemort, and so he changed the hearing to an earlier time (8 am) and a different location (Courtroom Ten) in the hopes of making Harry miss it, as well as trying Harry in front of the entire Wizengamot. Due to the change of time, Harry was five minutes late, but managed to attend it anyway, as he was already at the Ministry, having arrived there with Arthur Weasley.[4][1]

It was later revealed that Dolores Umbridge, a Ministry bureaucrat who served as Senior Undersecretary to the Minister for Magic and one of Harry's prosecutors during the hearing, had secretly ordered the Dementors to attack Harry in the first place in an attempt to silence him which she would later reveal to Harry after finding him trying to contact Sirius Black.[5]

During the hearing, Fudge was incredibly biased against Harry, in the hopes to spitefully discredit and expel the boy for his claims that Lord Voldemort had returned. Fudge introduced highly irrelevant considerations and biased accusations into the trial, all the while trying to deny Harry a chance to tell his version of what happened. Percy Weasley, the Court Scribe, was also nodding to Fudge's words and refusing to acknowledge Harry, much to Harry's fury.[1]

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