District Court Judge Ron Thomas
Prior to the commencement of the trial, Crown Attorney John Pearson requested presiding Judge Ron Thomas to take judicial notice of the historical fact that during the Second World War, the National Socialist regime of Adolf Hitler pursued a policy which had as its goal the extermination of the Jews of Europe. Thomas granted the application in the following terms:
It is my respectful view that the court should take judicial notice of the Holocaust having regard to all of the circumstances. The mass murder and extermination of Jews of Europe by the Nazi regime during the Second World War is so notorious as not to be the subject of dispute among reasonable persons. Furthermore, it is my view that the Holocaust is capable of immediate accurate demonstration by resort to readily accessible sources of indisputable accuracy. But I emphasize the ground upon which I hold that the court should take judicial notice of the Holocaust is that it is so notorious as to be not the subject of dispute among reasonable persons … The Holocaust is the mass murder and extermination of Jews by the Nazi regime during the Second World War, and the jury will be told to take judicial notice of that.
As a result, the jury in the Zündel trial was directed that it was required to accept as a fact that the “Holocaust”, as defined by Thomas, actually occurred.