Declaration of Mark Edward Weber

On October 9, 1981, California Superior Court Judge Thomas. T. Johnson, took "judicial notice" of the fact that "Jews were gassed to death at Auschwitz concentration Camp in Poland during the summer of 1944." Johnson's ruling was made in response to a Motion for "Judicial Notice" that had been made by plaintiff Mel Mermelstein in his law suit against the Institute for Historical Review. (note 1) Normally, parties to a legal dispute are permitted to introduce factual evidence to support their respective claims within the guidelines of evidentiary rules, which in California have been codified by the State legislature as the California Evidence Code. However, in order to avoid wasting the time of the court in proving the "obvious," the doctrine of the "judicial notice" has been developed whereby certain matters can be assumed to be factually true by the court and, thus, do not have to be proven through the introduction of evidence. In other words, where judicial notice is taken, no evidence needs to be introduced to prove the existence of the fact in question. (note 2)

In California, the doctrine of "permissive" judicial notice is set forth in Evidence Code§452 which states that: More