The Trial of Thomas More: Guilty as Charged?
The Trial of Thomas More: Guilty as Charged?
February 26, 2026
6:00pmBarbara Weitz Community Engagement Center, Room 230/231
6400 South, University Drive Road North
Omaha, Nebraska 68182
Cost: Free
A Public Talk with David R. Oakley, JD
Thomas More — skilled lawyer, keen statesman, and eventually martyr — was executed in 1535 after refusing to accept King Henry VIII's religious authority. His trial has often been remembered as a clear case of political injustice.
This lecture re-examines More's prosecution through the lens of Tudor law, asking whether the trial itself was fair, and whether treason laws under which More was charged were just in the first place. By situating More as both a defendant and a skilled lawyer navigating a dangerous legal landscape, the talk offers a fresh perspective on conscience, law, and power in early modern England.
ABOUT DAVID R. OAKLEY, JD:
David R. Oakley is a New York-based attorney who has spent decades practicing criminal defense law, trying more than fifty cases to verdict. He is research and founding fellow of the Center for Thomas More Studies at the University of Dallas and the author of several scholarly articles on More. He also co-authored Inside the Mind of Thomas More (2017), which brings legal insight to the study of one of the most famous trials of the English Reformation.
This event is Co-Sponsored by the Political Science Department's Constitutional Studies Forum and the History Department’s Medieval and Renaissance Program.
Free and open to the public. Free parking in Lot E.
Thomas More — skilled lawyer, keen statesman, and eventually martyr — was executed in 1535 after refusing to accept King Henry VIII's religious authority. His trial has often been remembered as a clear case of political injustice.
This lecture re-examines More's prosecution through the lens of Tudor law, asking whether the trial itself was fair, and whether treason laws under which More was charged were just in the first place. By situating More as both a defendant and a skilled lawyer navigating a dangerous legal landscape, the talk offers a fresh perspective on conscience, law, and power in early modern England.
ABOUT DAVID R. OAKLEY, JD:
David R. Oakley is a New York-based attorney who has spent decades practicing criminal defense law, trying more than fifty cases to verdict. He is research and founding fellow of the Center for Thomas More Studies at the University of Dallas and the author of several scholarly articles on More. He also co-authored Inside the Mind of Thomas More (2017), which brings legal insight to the study of one of the most famous trials of the English Reformation.
This event is Co-Sponsored by the Political Science Department's Constitutional Studies Forum and the History Department’s Medieval and Renaissance Program.
Free and open to the public. Free parking in Lot E.
The Trial of Thomas More: Guilty as Charged?
February 26, 2026
6:00pmBarbara Weitz Community Engagement Center, Room 230/231
6400 South, University Drive Road North
Omaha, Nebraska 68182
Carson Holloway
holloway@unomaha.edu