Outline

The Kingdom of Naples against Prospero

After his return to Naples, King Alonso determined that he and his party had come to be shipwrecked on an uncharted island in the Mediterranean Sea by the deliberate actions of Prospero, the former Duke of Milan.  Moreover, by application of sinister means, Prospero purposely bewitched the King's party and specifically entranced the King to reinstate his title.  As this was done under duress, it was without legal effect.  Further, it was discovered that during his long sojourn on the island, Prospero had forced its aboriginal inhabitant, one Caliban, to involuntarily toil as an unpaid servant, causing him great emotional distress.  As a result, charges are brought against Prospero for witchcraft, piracy, and false imprisonment.  Under the circumstances, the wedding of Miranda and Ferdinand is off. 

Prosecution Argument:  Prospero was responsible for intercepting and running the King’s ship aground, having improperly employed sorcery.  And once the innocent seafarers were under his dominion and control, he proceeded to subject them to mental torture, for example, permitting them to believe that others of their party had perished, including the King’s son and heir.  Further, by either magic, mass hypnosis, or other unknown methods, he caused the King and the members of his party to hallucinate and to lose their free will.  Such actions are of a piece with the other crime charged, regarding the cruel manipulation and mistreatment of Caliban.  And any grievances that Prospero may allege against the King and his brother Antonio for past offenses are simply arguments tu quoque, that is, as you did wrong, I can do wrong.  He cannot justify his endangerment of others in order to indulge his revenge and improperly retrieve his office.  He cannot play God.

Defense Argument:  Prospero admits to bringing the King’s ship to the island, but he stands on the defense of the doctrine of necessity.  He and his daughter needed to escape the island, and whatever skills he employed were legitimate means as matters of science, not sorcery.  Likewise, as to his admittedly firm oversight of Caliban, Prospero needed to impose such discipline for his own sake but also especially for that of his daughter.  After all, Caliban is an admitted predator and later even conspired to attempt the murder of Prospero in the most gruesome of ways.  And in the end, where is the harm?  The ship was repaired, and all whom had been aboard returned safely home--and with clean clothes.   

Preliminary Matters

The defense will ask the court to decline jurisdiction of this matter as the King has "unclean hands" in being partly responsible for Prospero and his daughter being stranded on the island in the first place.  The motion will be denied.

The defense will also challenge jurisdiction, arguing that Caliban is not even a Neapolitan.  The prosecution will assert the King claimed the island for Naples while there, making Caliban his subject nunc pro tunc.  The motion will be denied.

The defense will ask the court to dismiss the witchcraft charge as no death resulted as required by the statute at the time, which will be granted as the court agrees the prosecution has overcharged.  But the court will not agree to the defense request for a limiting instruction as to the prosecution making reference to Prospero’s purported use of black magic as being unfairly prejudicial.

The prosecution will move in limine to have the defense expert witness on magic excluded altogether as unhelpful and invading the province of the jury.  This motion will be denied.

Prosecution Witnesses

Caliban

Direct Examination:  He will relate his background as the son of Sycorax and his rightful claim to the island.  He will describe his mistreatment, his bondage, at the hands of Prospero, despite his having taught Prospero and his daughter how to survive on the island.  Taking poetic license with the text, Caliban will explain how he overheard Prospero speaking to Miranda and taking credit for grounding the King’s ship (admission of a party opponent). 

Cross-Examination:  The defense will bluntly ask whether Caliban attempted to sexually assault Miranda, to which he can claim a misunderstanding of civilized ways.  He will be asked whether Prospero and Miranda treated him well and, in fact, educated him.  He can famously reply that the only benefit of language is his ability to curse.  He will be asked whether he resents Prospero and whether he indeed conspired with Stephano to kill him.  When the methods of murder are elicited (Act III), the prosecution may object on grounds of unfair prejudice. 

Antonio

Direct Examination:  He will testify as to how the ship was otherwise sound, certainly "yare," and so it must have run aground due to other evil causes.  He will describe how he and the others were bewitched and how the King was coerced into reinstating Prospero's dukedom.  He will describe the illusions perpetrated on the King's party and their humiliating reprimand by Prospero (Act V) while all were charmed.  As to his personal knowledge of these latter events, Antonio will claim "recovered memory."

Cross-Examination:  Antonio will be asked about usurping his brother’s position, to which objections will be made as impeachment on a collateral matter.  Those will be overruled, and he will explain how Prospero was a neglectful, poor ruler, most content in his library with his books.  He will be asked about suborning murder and treason by egging on Sebastian to kill his brother and take his throne.  He may respond with some weak claim of affairs of state. 

Ferdinand

Direct Examination:  He will describe the trauma of being separated from the rest of the party after the shipwreck and how Prospero forced him--a prince!--to perform manual labor.  Like Antonio, he will describe the illusions conjured by Prospero.  And he will deny falling in love with Miranda.

Cross-Examination:  The defense will offer up Ferdinand’s tender words to Miranda to make him uncomfortable and suggest that he is weak-willed.      

Defense Witnesses

Sidney St. John

Direct Examination:  Professor St. John, a noted scholar, will be called to give expert testimony in distinguishing white magic, which Prospero practices, from black magic, which Caliban’s mother Sycorax practiced.  (The prosecution will unsuccessfully dispute the qualifications of the expert through voir dire.)  The expert will explain how this period constitutes the transition to modern science.  (Reference may be made to John Dee, Elizabeth’s astrologer, who is believed to be the model for Prospero, as well as to certain of the inventions of Archimedes, which may likely have appeared as black magic at the time.)  The thrust will be to distance Prospero from the prejudicial connotations of sorcery.

Cross-Examination:  The prosecution will attempt to blur the lines between the two kinds of magic and develop its argument that Prospero was in any event acting unjustly as a superman.

Ariel

 

Direct Examination:  Ariel will be called as a character witness for Prospero.  The prosecution will initially challenge the competency of Ariel as a non-human to testify.  After some colloquy, this attempt will be overruled, seeing as how the prosecution was allowed to call Caliban, whose status is similarly neither fish nor fowl.  Ariel will then describe how Prospero freed him from the spell of Sycorax and how Prospero was a good master. 

Cross-Examination:  The prosecution will elicit how Ariel was under Prospero’s control, like Caliban, and was not always happy.  In effect, Ariel at times suffered from the "Stockholm malady," being a susceptible captive, and thus is an unreliable witness.  He will be asked about his talk with Prospero in Act V about the plight of the King's party and how Ariel’s questions to Prospero moved him to sympathy, indicating the harm that had been done to them.

Prospero

Direct Examination:  He will relate his ouster from the Dukedom and stranding on the island.  He will explain his troubled relationship with Caliban.  He will vaguely explain his "Art" and how he needed to bring the ship to the island for the rescue of his daughter and himself.  He will explain that he forgave the King and his brother and chose not to reveal the conspiracy of Antonio and Sebastian to kill the King, which draws a collective gasp from the courtroom.

Cross-Examination:  The thrust will be how Prospero was bent simply on revenge.  The prosecution may seek to trigger an outburst from him by causing him to relive the twelve years of being marooned.  (This could resemble the Reid Technique used by police to encourage suspects in justifying their crimes, with the aim of securing a confession.)  And as to the degree of harm inflicted, what really was the difference between his library in Milan and the island; after all, he still had his books and magic. 

To highlight Prospero's prejudiced treatment of Caliban, the prosecution may be guided by Montaigne's essay "Of Cannibals," which was a source for Shakespeare.  Rather than a savage, Prospero will be asked whether Caliban isn't simply a "natural man," unsullied by corrupt civilization.  Prospero will respond, in line with the play's theme, that civilization must build on nature. 

He will be asked whether that was the only ship to pass by in twelve years’ time, on a busy sea route.  The prosecution may try to taint Prospero with black magic by inquiring into how he carried out his "Art."  He will refuse to answer.  It will be explained how after the King’s return, officers of the Neapolitan Navy traveled to the island and surveyed its coast, finding evidence of an artificial reef designed to function as a "ship trap," a favorite tactic of pirates, to which   Prospero will not respond.  Further, it will be explained how police investigators brought with the navy found hallucinogenic plants strewn about the island.  When Prospero is asked if that is how he charmed the King and his party or caused Ferdinand to become smitten with Miranda, he will again refuse to answer as to how he did what he did.  The prosecution will then seek an adverse inference ruling from the court to the effect that Prospero must have used sinister means in carrying out his devious plans.  The court will deny the request, as it would be irrelevant since the witchcraft charge was dismissed.  The only purpose then would be to inflame the jury.  Further, Prospero may not wish to answer these questions as they are matters of trade secret.   

Prospero will be asked about his manipulation of Ferdinand to fall in love with Miranda, and how it might cynically serve the politic end of guaranteeing his descendants would be royalty. 

Finally, the prosecution will ask about Ariel’s report of the condition of the King’s party and its effect on Prospero.  He will explain how it made him decide to give up his magic.  The question then is, if it is so benign, why did he have to give it up, to which he does not answer.  He will be asked if Ariel’s description caused him to forgive the King and his brother, which he concedes.  Then the question, if Ariel’s chance question had not pricked his conscience, what had he otherwise planned to do to the King and his brother.  When no response is forthcoming, the argumentative question could be put, "So you may be no different from Caliban?" 

 

Closing Arguments

Defense

Prospero is a decent man of great wisdom who merely needed to protect his daughter and himself.  All the steps that he took were sensible and in line with science.  His actions are justified by the doctrine of necessity.  And he certainly employed no nefarious means to retrieve his title.  If anything, it was the King’s guilty conscience that caused him to reinstate Prospero as Duke.

Prosecution

The prosecution will stress how Prospero cannot rely on the doctrine of necessity as the harm occasioned far exceeded the harm threatened, and he had other means to attempt rescue, such as simply signaling the King's ship.  Further, he seemed to have Caliban under control in any event, and any threat from him may have resulted from cross-cultural misunderstanding.  Prospero was motivated by revenge, and who knows what may have happened had not Ariel caused him to have a change of heart.