Last Updated 7.24.25.(G)

This is Part 1 of the Climate Justice Now program. The full Climate Justice Now program is described on this page.

 

Prologue

Over 2,000 lawsuits have been filed against global fossil fuel cartel members in at least 28 countries. These lawsuits currently involve hundreds of billions of dollars in loss and damage actions.

Over the next ten to fifteen years, it is estimated that the global fossil fuel industry will eventually be forced to pay out trillions of dollars in loss and damage reparation payments in tens of thousands of lawsuits to governments, private individuals, and businesses, resulting in loss and damage judgments worldwide. 

The Climate Justice Now program is designed around a simple goal that embodies the most profound meaning of climate justice. It is also based on a simple legal principle:

Those who have caused, facilitated, or enabled climate change-related loss and damage must be held accountable for that loss and damage and be liable for any criminal actions committed in the process.

Homeowners, businesses, insurance companies, innocent investors, local, county, state, or national governments, or their innocent taxpayers must never be required to pay for the climate change loss and damage caused by the intentional, decades-long acts of the perpetrators of climate change. 

This online public transcript of the global fossil fuel cartel trial for climate change consequence damages, restitution, and criminal acts is being used to:

a. Help the victims of climate change loss and damage quickly understand how their loss and damage occurred, and assist them in obtaining full financial restitution from the perpetrators of climate change.

b. Educate the public about critical climate change facts that the perpetrators of climate change have hidden from the public for decades.

c. Quickly bring lawyers, law firms, and government authorities up to speed on the scope, scale, and decades-long history of toxic pollution and the criminal activities of the perpetrators of climate change. It describes new and traditional civil and criminal legal reasons and actions for how climate change damage, loss, and restitution can be successfully enforced against the perpetrators of climate change.

 

You will want to read the entire online public trial below because it provides links to a growing list of:

a. Lawyers and solicitors worldwide involved in climate change litigation against the fossil fuel cartel, who can assist you in recovering your climate change losses and damages,

b. Climate change damage liability evidence and related information, and

c. Climate change whistleblower support and protection organizations in case you or someone you know might want to testify about the past or ongoing crimes of the perpetrators of climate change, like many others are doing.

You can also vote on the global fossil cartel's guilt, or innocence

As the reader of this public trial, you are also invited to become a jury member. At the end of the trial, you will be asked to make your "guilty as charged" or "not guilty" jury vote using our online voting form.

 

What is in the first online trial of the perpetrators of the climate change emergency?

This online trial contains:

1. The trial jury member selection, the climate change prosecution's and climate change defense's opening statements, and the defense expert witnesses and evidence documents.

2. The prosecution presents its climate change evidence and climate change expert witnesses.

3. The prosecution presents the four worst consequences of the fossil fuels cartel's decades of toxic pollution and illegal actions.

4. The prosecution presents the fossil fuel cartel's massive death machine and the despicable motivation for creating the climate change emergency.

5. The defense and prosecution's closing statements and the final jury voting on the relevant climate change crimes, both civil and criminal, and the appropriate climate change, restitution, and reparations as applicable.

6. Climate change justice is delivered. The climate change final judgment rendered by the jury for all climate change crimes, both criminal and civil.

All climate change evidence for the jury trial is partially found in the links within the trial or on the evidence documentation page linked here.

 

The Trial Begins

Due to its mature content, this online trial is not suitable for children under 16. Please forward this online fossil fuel cartel trial to everyone who has suffered climate change damage or losses.

 

Jury member selection

Before the trial begins, a jury must be selected from a jury pool of citizens. By law, both the prosecution and defense are allowed to have four potential jury members disqualified for any reason. 

The defense had one of the country's most renowned jury consultants advising the defense attorneys on which prospective jurors to approve and which to reject. Both sides used all of their potential juror disqualifications.

Here is a quick summary of the jury selection process that occurred:

1. The defense looked for jury members who had the least amount of education, distrusted science, and felt that climate change was a hoax. It also sought jury members with friends or family who were directly employed by the fossil fuel industry.

2. The prosecution sought individuals with high educational levels (college-level degrees or higher), trusted valid science, and believed that climate change was real. They also looked for individuals who did not have family or friends directly employed in the fossil fuel industry.

The final jury makeup consisted of six individuals of each type, as described in points 1 and 2 above. The judge then seated the jury and called for the prosecutor's opening statement.

 

 

The prosecutor's opening statement in the climate change trial of the perpetrators of climate change and global warming

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, a Grand Jury of your peers has already convened and lawfully determined that the perpetrator(s) of climate change must be indicted and charged with serious climate change-related criminal felonies and other civil charges. Because of this Grand Jury indictment, the perpetrator(s) of climate change must now be tried by this jury, where it will be you who makes the final determination of guilt or innocence.

Let's get two simple things out of the way so that you will know exactly what I'm talking about when I mention climate change consequences and who I'm talking about as the cause of those consequences.

The most common climate change consequences you or someone you know may have already experienced or you may have seen watching in the news are climate change-caused or amplified weather events commonly defined as heatwaves, heat domes, droughts, wildfires, hurricanes, cyclones, tornados, floods, flooding, sea level rise, rain bombs, wind storms [Derechos], dust storms, wildfire smoke events, unseasonable cold spells, and other abnormal, unseasonal, record-breaking, or extreme weather. 

Most jury members are seen nodding discreetly in recognition or approval as the prosecution rolls through the list. The prosecutor continues.

You may also wonder who the global fossil fuel cartel is. The cartel's membership includes the world's largest oil, coal, and gas-producing companies. But it is not just cartel member companies and their executives who cause our climate change nightmare. The cartel's lobbyists, marketing, public relations firms, and financial backers also enable and facilitate various fossil fuel cartel crimes.

Now that you better understand what the consequences of climate change are and who the fossil fuel cartel is let's continue with what they have done wrong.

In this trial, you will hear about the global fossil fuel cartel's serious civil crimes, criminal felonies, and crimes against humanity in great detail during this trial before you render your final verdict. 

Many of you may be wondering what the consequences of climate change could be that rise to the level of civil crimes, criminal felonies, and crimes against humanity, and that would also require restitution payments for damage and loss. My opening statement will mention only a few of these climate change crimes and their consequences, as many more will be revealed during the trial. 

But before you can decide on the cartel's guilt or innocence, it is necessary to bring you up to speed a bit about the fossil fuel cartels' continuous actions and history. Prepare yourselves to have almost everything you think or believe about the global fossil fuel cartel turned upside-down. 

In the evidence and the expert testimony that will be presented during this trial, we, the prosecution, will prove the global fossil fuel cartel is:

1. The root, primary, and ongoing cause of the climate change emergency,

2. The intentional and continuous source of a massive global disinformation and censorship campaign drowning out the actual facts and threat of climate change in an insidious global program cleverly designed so the public can't think accurately about climate change threat and our politicians and governments can't understand the real risks to act appropriately to fix it. This insidious program was intentionally designed to make all of us climate change stupid and the cartel ever richer.

3. The simple reason climate change has not been resolved over the last 40+ years is the obscene greed for ever more profit of the global fossil fuel cartel. The cartel has done everything within its power to ensure humanity does not solve climate change because it would mean radical global fossil fuel use reductions. And,

4. Something terrible has occurred due to the cartel's decades of criminal actions. The cumulative and synergetic effects of the cartel's products and actions will eventually seriously harm almost every person on Earth. (The prosecutor then takes a few moments to carefully explain the meaning of the critical phrases "the cumulative effects of fossil fuel burning" and "the synergetic effects of fossil fuel burning" to the jury. He explains. The jury needs to grasp the meaning of those words as they relate to the dangerous magnifying and amplifying effects of interacting climate consequences and what the cartel has done to the jury's future.

5. The actions of the global fossil fuel cartel rise to the level of a conspiracy. According to the dictionary, a conspiracy is:

"a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful."

We will prove that the cartel not only was doing something unlawful, but they also knew that their actions would be severely harmful, causing massive financial loss, physical suffering, and death to millions and millions of people.

6. We will demonstrate why the global fossil fuel cartel must now be held financially and criminally, responsible for all climate change damage around the world.

The prosecutor continues.

Until you see and hear all of the evidence, there is no quick and easy reference or comparison point for you to grasp the total harm and destruction the cartel has created and will continue to do if left unpunished. This lack of comparable references is because, to the best of our knowledge, such similar and dangerous climate conditions have never occurred or been produced in history, and some aspects of climate change are somewhat complicated.

But, during this trial and with the evidence presented, it will become painfully clear to you that decades of the cartel's actions have created global conditions that have and will seriously harm the well-being of almost every person on Earth. 

In the prosecution's evidence and the expert testimony that we will present during this trial, we will also prove to you that:

1. Beyond a reasonable doubt, every one of the cartel's defense lawyers' opening statements you will soon be hearing is either wrong or incompatible with accurate climate change facts. 

2. Independently and collectively, the global fossil fuel cartel has also engaged in an ongoing global criminal conspiracy for at least 40 years. And,

3. it is not only the global fossil fuel cartel companies that are part of this conspiracy and must be held financially and criminally liable for their actions. It is also the senior executives, lobbyists, PR and Marketing firms, outside large investors, mutual funds, hedge funds, and other outside authorities who exerted substantive influence on the global fossil fuel cartel's myriad members to continue their toxic, slow-poisoning, and polluting actions. 

These managing, controlling, and substantive influences of, on, or over the cartel also knew (or should have known under principles of common legal due diligence) that such actions over time would directly result in hundreds of millions of slow and painful deaths. This means that ALL preceding parties that were or are currently involved in this ongoing criminal conspiracy to continue profiting over the suffering and deaths of millions of innocent people are also fully complicit in those crimes. 

I promise that by the time we finish our closing argument, you also will not think that climate change is a natural Earth process that has been going on for millennia, a hoax, an accident, a natural disaster, or an act of God.

You will know with certainty that the global climate change emergency, with all its death and destruction and suffering and financial loss, has been known about, carefully planned out, and executed for decades. By the time we reach closing statements, you will have no doubt about who is fully responsible for the climate change nightmare now facing humanity. 

I can see that some of you in the jury box look totally surprised, confused, or even highly dubious of what I am saying about the fossil fuel cartel because it is not common knowledge outside of the climate change and other experts the prosecution will be presenting. 

I also understand that many of you on the jury currently believe that the fossil fuel industry and its products are good or are doing far more good than harm. You may be familiar with the many plastic products made from fossil fuels, which are used in items such as hospital equipment that may have saved the life of a loved one or yourself. I can assure you that in this trial, these medical products are not related to the cartel's climate change crimes. 

As jury members, you also may have previously believed that, at worst, the global fossil fuel cartel members and executives may be simple white-collar criminals. During this trial, I will prove to you that the decades-long criminal actions of the cartel are on a scale of death and destructiveness unprecedented in human history. I will also conclusively prove to you that the global fossil fuel cartel is the largest and most destructive criminal enterprise in history and has committed serious crimes against humanity.

I believe you will soon come to a completely different view of the cartel once you have heard and reviewed all the evidence and expert testimony from this trial. 

At the end of this trial, you will have the legal power to convict the cartel, its executives, and related or enabling companies and individuals on any one, combination, or all of the following legal charges or any logical extension or application of the intent of the laws in these areas. Those charges and legal areas are:

a. Product liability (for damages caused by the cartel's toxic polluting products).

b. Violations of consumer protection laws (for damages caused by a cartel's toxic, polluting products or actions).

c. False advertising and false marketing.

d. negligence and gross negligence resulting in death, bodily harm, or destruction and loss because of the cartel's toxic, polluting products or the negligent or grossly negligent actions of a cartel or cartel agents.

e. Racketeering, possibly even the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act in the US. For decades, the cartel has actively blocked laws designed to reduce fossil fuel use and subsidies that could have improved or accelerated the global transition to green energy generation and green energy applications.

f. Aiding and abetting the cartel's toxic pollution or other criminal activities. It's not just the cartel manufacturers of these deadly and destructive fossil fuel products that are to be held accountable. A new precedent-setting case has occurred, widening the zone of the cartel's legal liability. In the recent multi-billion-dollar US opioid cases, it was not just Purdue Pharmaceutical, the manufacturer of the opioids, that was held liable. Big-name distributors of Purdue's opioid products, such as Walmart, Walgreens, and CVS drugstores, were also held liable for damages. 

Additionally, McKinsey & Company in the US was forced to pay 78 million dollars for its role in promoting the deadly opioid epidemic in the US. They were convicted of supplying deceptive marketing plans to boost the sales of Perdue's dangerous product. McKinsey & Company's deceptive marketing actions mirror the decades-long global climate change disinformation campaigns of the cartel.

(McKinsey & Company intentionally supplied disinformation to the public and others about the dangers of the Purdue Pharmaceutical-produced opioids. This 78 million dollar judgment opens the door to hold cartel lobbyists, PR firms, marketing firms, funding banks, or individuals legally responsible for cartel climate change damages for their co-conspiratorial aiding and abetting roles. Many firms were involved in creating, promoting, enabling, facilitating, or financing the cartel's climate change disinformation, deceptive marketing, or the cartel's other coercive and illegal actions, which prevented society and its politicians from enacting the required fossil fuel reductions decades ago and accelerating the transition to a green energy economy. Worse yet, the cartel and its enablers have worked tirelessly to stop those who could have prevented the current and past harms of climate change consequences.

g. First-degree murder (millions of deaths have been caused annually by the cartel's toxic, polluting products and their coercive global actions to prevent fossil fuel regulation. The cartel conclusively knew its products would kill millions for decades.)

h. Genocide (The cartel has already killed an estimated 300 million people since the 1800s from its toxic and deadly polluting fossil fuel products. Escalating climate change today is causing worldwide mass migrations and resulting in the deaths of many millions more annually (mostly poor and disadvantaged people.) 

If allowed to continue unchecked, the cartel's total toxic product pollution, with all of the primary and secondary climate change consequences of that toxic pollution, will directly or indirectly kill about half of humanity by about 2050.

(Click here to learn why such a massive climate change-driven human die-off is now all but unavoidable by 2050.)

I. Crimes against humanity. Because of the carefully planned and orchestrated decades of massive, deadly crimes against humanity and humanity's future well-being affecting so much of the human population, the cartel should be treated as a rogue nation and also face crimes against humanity charges. 

Those are not all of the charges against the cartel you will be hearing about in this trial. 

You will not be alone in sitting in judgment of the global fossil fuel cartel. There are already approximately 2,000 ongoing worldwide lawsuits against the cartel, with hundreds of billions of dollars in claimed climate change-related damages. 

New cartel climate damage lawsuits are being filed almost daily, and it is now predicted that in just ten years, citizens, businesses, and nations will be suing the global fossil fuel cartel in tens of thousands of new lawsuits for trillions of dollars in climate change damages. Despite the numerous other lawsuits against the cartel, this trial stands out. It is unique because, for the first time, the cartel will also be tried for an extensive list of crimes against humanity.

Just like the confederacy was on the wrong side of history with its slavery, you will soon come to realize that the global fossil fuel cartel is also on the wrong side of history, and hopefully, with your guilty verdict, you will help teach them that lesson.

I also want to apologize in advance if our prosecution team wanders a bit like the old TV attorney Columbo. If you are patient, we will make all of the complicated climate change evidence easy to understand with evidence illustrations and the testimony of the many experts we will call to the stand.

Whenever during the trial, I mention the guilt of the senior executives of the fossil fuel cartel and their associated companies in agents; I am only referring to the people at the highest levels, those commonly found in what's called the C suite, the chief financial officer, the chief operating officer, the chief legal officer, and that level of decision-making executives. I am not referring to lower-level managers or any of the cartel's employees who lacked real decision-making power or even knowledge of what the senior executives were doing to humanity and our future. None of the fossil fuel cartel employees, other than the senior executives, should be held responsible for the actions of the senior executives.

In fact, we believe lower-level fossil fuel employees who were not involved in high-level fossil fuel decisions or crimes must be financially compensated, subsidized, and actively assisted. Here is what I mean by this. We believe that all individuals, businesses, and nations that will be financially harmed during the rapid transition from fossil fuels to green energy generation systems and equipment must be financially supported throughout the transition.

This support could include providing new job training in positions for the new green economy or positions in other industries. As you can see, we are not targeting everyone in the fossil fuel cartel, only those guilty who had the highest levels of decision-making power.

I also promise there will be no last-minute secret and sealed settlement behind closed doors with the perpetrators of climate change. The cartel's crimes are so despicable that the evidence presented during the trial and your verdict must remain available forever to the public worldwide.

To bring true climate change justice to every person, business, and nation harmed, keeping this trial's evidence and results unsealed is critical so that it can be repeatedly used in future trials. Never forget that your verdict, the evidence presented, and the serious charges we present will become the script for many future worldwide lawsuits against the cartel.

During this trial, you will hear the prosecution team repeatedly call the cartel perpetrators of climate change vile, malicious, and evil. We do not use those words without careful thought. If what I am saying is true, when it comes time for your verdict, I will ask you in my closing statement if the cartel's actions are a perfect definition of evil actions. 

And finally, and in summary, we, the prosecution, will conclusively prove these facts to you beyond a reasonable doubt.

1. The perpetrators of climate change consciously knew their products would cause the painful deaths of hundreds of millions of people and cause extensive and severe damage and financial loss worldwide.

2. Instead of stopping the production of their toxic, polluting, and deadly products, they began a well-financed global disinformation, censorship, and coercive political action program to make it impossible for anyone who could have prevented those deaths from being able to do so. They did this and other acts to compromise and make impotent our politicians or anyone trying to regulate them and their deadly products. 

3. The perpetrators of climate change not only intentionally knew their toxic, polluting products would kill hundreds of millions of people, but they also deliberately, intentionally, and actively continued to do everything within their power to prevent anyone from preventing those deaths.

4. And worst of all, they are still aggressively continuing the same toxic, polluting, and global warming-causing actions that will eventually kill billions more individuals by 2050.

The prosecution concludes its opening statement, and the judge calls for a jury break before the defense renders its opening statement.

 

 

The global fossil fuel cartel defense attorney's opening statement

The cartel defense team consists of ten lawyers and a support staff of ten individuals, seated on the right side of the court. Their attorneys wear beautifully tailored suits, priced at $2,000, made in Italy and Savile Row, England.

The judge, seeing that the jury has returned from break, calls the defense to present its opening statement. The cartel's defense lead lawyer steps forward and begins to speak.

"In this trial, our defense team will prove beyond any shadow of a doubt that the Grand Jury indictment for criminal felonies, crimes against humanity, and the murder of millions of individuals against my client is absolute nonsense. In this trial, you will hear the prosecution make many wild and ridiculous claims about my client and their actions over the last 60 years.

Rather than re-stating the Grand Jury's indictment or the prosecution's additional charges, I will state my client's positions on all these charges. Please keep these positions in mind during this trial:

The American Medical Association, the European Medical Association, the Asian Medical Association, and the World Health Organization are all dead wrong in stating that 10 million deaths a year are directly and indirectly caused by fossil fuel-burning toxins polluting and poisoning the atmosphere. Our experts will demonstrate that the studies and reports from these medical associations and their medical experts are scientifically flawed.

The global fossil fuel cartel is not responsible for the suffering and deaths of hundreds of millions of people since fossil fuels were first used. The fossil fuel cartel is equally not responsible for the many hundreds of millions of additional people that the prosecutor will claim will also suffer and die by 2050 due to fossil fuel products' cumulative or synergetic toxic pollution effects and the cartel's other alleged criminal actions. Those individuals in the past who have suffered and died from the indirect consequences of climate change have done so because of natural causes or poor individual lifestyle choices. Their suffering and deaths had absolutely nothing to do with fossil fuel products or fossil fuel cartel actions.

Our client's fossil fuel products, when used properly, do not create toxic, slow-poisoning pollution. This problem is largely the failure of politicians and governments to regulate or require sufficient pollution controls and efficiency standards for the use of fossil fuel products, which is the real cause of the issue. Therefore, for failing to do their jobs, it is the politicians and governments who are to blame and entirely financially responsible and liable for any current toxic pollution killing people and all of the other alleged fossil fuel burning health consequences.

Let's be absolutely clear about this. My client's products did not cause any process that slowly murdered millions of individuals over the last six decades. My client is not a white-collar mass murderer.

My client has also never engaged in any criminal acts or crimes against humanity over the last six decades.

Climate change is natural and caused by natural factors. It has occurred regularly and continuously throughout the Earth's history. 

The global fossil fuel cartel was not engaged in climate change illegal disinformation, but in regular business product education.

The cartel's decades-long actions to prevent effective regulation and reduce the use of global fossil fuels were standard business practices and lobbying tactics. 

The cartel's decades of ongoing actions to block governmental green energy subsidies for innovation, development, or deployment of green energy were everyday competitive business practices.

All fossil fuel cartel efforts to fight or delay government regulations that would have benefited green energy generation research, development, or deployment, or fossil fuel efforts to impose new government rules that would hinder the development or deployment of green energy generation systems or green technology were, again, just standard competitive business practices.

If climate change damage has occurred, the insurance companies that insure against normal and natural weather risks should be the ones to pay for any resulting climate change damage. 

If insurance companies do not have policies in place to cover climate damage for individuals or businesses, then the government should be paying for climate change damages as part of its regular natural disaster relief efforts and funds.

The fossil fuel cartel is not responsible for any climate change damages because any climate change damages that have occurred or will occur are caused solely by politicians, governments, and individual citizens who have not regulated fossil fuel to conserve energy and who have repeatedly failed to regulate their fossil fuel production or use.

Fossil fuel products are essential for modern life. Nothing currently exists that can practically and efficiently replace fossil fuels' widespread use. Modern society cannot function or live without them. Fossil fuel products do far more good than harm. 

The global fossil fuel cartel did not know its products might cause harm or deaths until very recently, in July of 2023. Therefore, my client cannot be held liable for any actions taken before the 2023 date, as they were unaware of the information at the time. And finally, 

Because of all of the previous facts, the global fossil fuel cartel has no responsibility of any kind to pay financial restitution for any worldwide climate change consequence loss and damage."

During this trial, our attorneys and our expert witnesses will prove to you that all the claims and charges you will hear from the prosecution are pure garbage.

After the cartel defense's opening statement, the judge allowed the unusual action of allowing the fossil fuel defense to begin first and submit their expert witnesses and supporting evidence before the prosecution gave its opening statement. The defense attorney for the cartel convinced the judge to let them present their evidence first so that after they presented their evidence, the defense could move for Summary Judgment on the merits to end the case because the defense's evidence was so comprehensive, compelling, and complete against all of the charges.

 

The fossil fuel cartel's defense presents its evidence

To support their opening statements, the cartel's defense then presented a series of expert witnesses and submitted over 200 documents to the jury. For days, the jury sat and listened to the cartel's experts, reviewing their evidence and document submissions.

When each of the defense's expert witnesses is done, the lead prosecution attorney asks only the following questions.

"I only have a few quick questions for the defense's expert witnesses before we present our opening statement for the prosecution."

Here are the questions the prosecution asks each expert for the defense:

1. In your expert witness credentials, I notice that you are not a recognized climate change expert who is credentialed in the complexities of the climate and its many subsystems. What makes you uniquely qualified to testify in this climate change damage liability case?

Most of the expert's witness qualification answers are so vague, unrelated to climate change science, or confusing to the jury that the prosecution does not ask additional questions about the quality of their credentials at this time.

2. How many years have you been an expert witness or worked for or with any fossil fuel-related company in any capacity?

3. During that time, what is the total income you have received as a paid expert witness in the form of any grants for your research, any speaking engagements, or any other activity with any fossil fuel cartel-related company in any capacity?

When the expert witnesses answer, the amounts range from a few hundred thousand dollars to several million dollars.

The expressions on the jurors' faces signal both disbelief and surprise.

Several attorneys for the defense and the defense's jury consultant notice the concerned-looking faces in the jury box and quickly begin talking quietly among themselves.

The prosecution attorney then asks the cartel's expert witness the next question.

4. It appears that the fossil fuel cartel has paid you a tremendous amount of money. The prosecutor repeats the total amount for that expert. Please tell the jury what percentage of your total income has been derived from working for fossil fuel-related companies during the total time you have worked with these companies. 

Every expert witness answers this question. The prosecution then comments and then asks.

5. The prosecutor then repeats the percentage of the expert's total income. That is a huge percentage of your income (and, in some cases, all of it.) What do you think would happen to your total personal income if you did not testify favorably for the fossil fuel cartel positions?

The defense stands and loudly objects. The judge sustains the objection.

The prosecution rephrases the question.

5a. Do you really believe you can still be an unbiased expert witness after having such a high percentage of your total income come from your relationships with fossil fuel companies? 

Each expert vehemently answers yes, absolutely, why, of course, or why not. 

The prosecutor smiles and says, "Your answer reminds me of a famous American humorist, Mark Twain, who quotes, "It's hard to teach a man something that their livelihood depends upon not knowing."

The defense attorney jumps up and objects, irrelevant. The judge smiles and says sustained.

Several jury members are also seen smiling incredulously, while others roll their eyes as they hear the expert's answers.

Next, but only with the first defense expert witness, the prosecution attorney also asks:

6. Do you know how much the cartel's ten defense attorneys in the court today are making? Here is a document containing the cartel's attorney bills, which we obtained through routine pretrial discovery and document production. Does it surprise you that each of the cartel's ten leading attorneys is billing the cartel $2,000 an hour per attorney?

The defense attorney objects to the question, and the prosecutor states that these and the previous questions pertain to establishing the extreme wealth of the fossil fuel cartel in the damages section of the trial. The judge allows the question.

The expert witnesses all say they are not surprised at the $2,000 per hour fee per attorney. 

After the last expert witness has been asked the preceding questions, the prosecution reminds the jury that he retains the right to recall these expert witnesses for additional questions during the trial. The prosecution then tells the jury that "rather than refuting the defense's experts and documents now and before the jury has a better understanding of climate change, it will after the prosecution's opening statement that the prosecution team will present all of our experts and documents to resoundingly refute all the climate change testimony and documents submitted by the defense and the defense's experts."

At that point, the trial judge tells the jury there will be a short break.

During the break, the defense's expert meets with the lead defense attorneys and shares the following information. The jury did not respond well to the various experts you presented in the documents your expert submitted. Your experts did not connect with the jury on any personal level that would build confidence in what they were saying. When the jury heard the amount of money your experts were being paid, their expressions worsened, and some looked at each other in disbelief. You already have an uphill battle with the jury, and they haven't even heard the evidence or the prosecution's experts.

Also, during the break, the cartel's defense attorneys submitted a summary judgment motion to dismiss the case. They argued before the judge, and the judge said he would not dismiss the case. At this point, he wants to hear the prosecution's evidence and honor the grand jury indictment. He tells the defense that he would consider a Summary Judgment motion later during the trial.

 

Click here for the next section of the cartel trial: The prosecution attorneys present their evidence of criminal actions against the global fossil fuel cartel.

 

 

 

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The above opinion page is provided by the Job One Research and Analysis team.