quality:correction
Book Twelve: A Judicial Error

This book details the trial of Dmitri Karamazov for the murder of his father. The courtroom drama is sharply satirized by Dostoevsky. The men in the crowd are presented as resentful and spiteful, and the women as irrationally drawn to the romanticism of Dmitri's love triangle with Katerina and Grushenka. Ivan's madness takes its final hold over him and he is carried away from the courtroom after his attempt to give evidence about Smerdyakov descends into incomprehensible raving. The turning point in the trial is Katerina's damning testimony. Shocked by Ivan's madness, she passionately defends him and abandons her 'honourable' approach to Dmitri. She produces a letter drunkenly written by Dmitri saying that he would kill his father. The section concludes with lengthy and impassioned closing remarks from the prosecutor and the defence counsel and the verdict that Dmitri is guilty.