Summary written by Maren Chaloupka.
Case tried by Kurt Kerns, TLC 99.
A few weeks ago, some of you may have read the New York Times' coverage of a very unusual trial taking place in the federal court of Wichita, Kansas. DOJ had charged Lazare Kobagaya, age 84, with various offenses arising out of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. The allegation was that Mr. Kobagaya was personally involved with the massacre of Tutsi, including burning a Tutsi village, torturing and murdering Tutsi, and forcing Hutu to brutalize and murder Tutsi on pain of death.
The testimony was floridly graphic. Most of the 50 witnesses were African. For six weeks, the jury heard stories of women being beaten to death, of boys being hacked to death with machetes, and of other brutalizations committed allegedly on Mr. Kobagaya's orders. DOJ had framed the case as an immigration violation, with two charges: lying to immigration officials about his whereabounts between 1993-95, and the far more explosive, charge of lying to immigration officials about he had ever persecuted anyone or committed a crime for which he was not arrested. Proof of the latter charge required DOJ to show that Mr. Kobagaya had committed genocide.
This was the first criminal prosecution in the United States that involved proof of African genocide. DOJ spared no expense, flying in dozens of its witnesses from around the world. It was an end run around war crimes tribunal procedures.
Our brother Kurt Kerns (TLC '99) was the lead defense lawyer. In the last 18 months, Kurt has spent a great deal of time in Africa, traveling through conflict areas that remain very dangerous today in order to see the scenes described by witnesses, prepare for cross-exam of DOJ's witnesses and identify witnesses for the defense. In that work, Kurt discovered and developed the true story of these badly traumatized DOJ witnesses, as he learned that the Rwandan government encouraged and pressured its own political prisoners to implicate others such as Mr. Kobagaya, in cooperation with the American government. These witnesses' will and self-confidence were devastated by the horror of what they had lived through, making them specially vulnerable to pressure from their own corrupt government acting in concert with USDOJ.
Kurt also presented the story of a confusing immigration application presented to an elderly man whose English was shaky, and who completed his application through translation by his son.
This was not a trial in which jurors were falling asleep or dreaming of their grocery lists. The jury was riveted by the sensational and horrific testimony, adjusting to the unusual accents of the witnesses and demonstrating close attention throughout the six weeks of trial. And in the end, the jury's decision showed that Kurt had indeed developed and presented a truly connective story that jurors could understand.
The jury convicted Mr. Kobagaya on the lesser charge of lying to immigration officials about his whereabouts in 1993-1995. But, the jury hung on the greater charge of whether he had lied in stating that he had never persecuted anyone or committed a crime for which he was not convicted. The conviction on the lesser charge is not enough to even get Mr. Kobagaya deported - - meaning that Kurt has saved his client from a certainty of torture and death in Rwanda if the jury had convicted on the greater charge.
For Kurt to obtain this result, he had to not only commit his characteristic strong work ethic and creativity, but had to undertake literal risk of life and limb by his travels to Congo and Rwanda. He had to find the right way to tell the story, through cross-examination, of witnesses who had lived through unbelievable horrors. This case required all of Kurt's natural talents and smarts, and Kurt delivered. What a singular result, from a true Warrior.
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