MAY IT PLEASE THE COURT

MILAN KUNDERA Murder simply hastens a bit what God will eventually see to on His own. God, it may be assumed, took murder into account; . . . ─ The Unbearable Lightness of Being     But, he said to himself, whether they knew or didn’t know is not the main issue; the main issue is whether a man is innocent because he didn’t know. Is a fool on the throne relieved of all responsibility merely because he is a fool?     Let us concede that a Czech public prosecutor in the early fifties who called for the death of an innocent man was deceived by the Russian secret police and the government of his own country. But now that we all know the accusations to have been absurd and the execution to have been innocent, how can that selfsame public prosecutor defend his purity of heart by beating himself on the chest and proclaiming, My conscience is clear! I didn’t know! I was a believer! Isn’t his “I didn’t know! I was a believer!” at the very root of his irreparable guil...