Washington D.C. — You read the title right, Hamlet, the great literary character of Shakespeare, has been put on trial. Justice Anthony Kennedy staged a trial of Hamlet at the Kennedy Center during Washington, D.C.’s celebration of Shakespeare.

If you’re not familiar with Hamlet, here’s a brief overview from Spark Notes: On a dark winter night, a ghost walks the ramparts of Elsinore Castle in Denmark. Discovered first by a pair of watchmen, then by the scholar Horatio, the ghost resembles the recently deceased King Hamlet, whose brother Claudius has inherited the throne and married the king’s widow, Queen Gertrude. When Horatio and the watchmen bring Prince Hamlet, the son of Gertrude and the dead king, to see the ghost, it speaks to him, declaring ominously that it is indeed his father’s spirit, and that he was murdered by none other than Claudius. Ordering Hamlet to seek revenge on the man who usurped his throne and married his wife, the ghost disappears with the dawn.

As anyone who has studied Hamlet, it is a constant argument whether or not Prince Hamlet is truly gone mad, or is just playing mad. And the trial of Hamlet, showed evidence to support both sides of this argument. You will often see actors who play Hamlet, have to decide early on during the preparation for the play, whether or not Hamlet is mad or just playing mad, and then act on this premise.

I myself, have always found Hamlet to be coherent enough to know what he was doing, but already turmoiled by the fact that his own uncle killed his father, had to have gone mad during his last hours.

In the end,

After two hours of mock-trial arguments at the Kennedy Center — presided over by no less a jurist than Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy — a jury of Washingtonians deliberated over whether Hamlet was in his right mind when he stabbed Polonius to death. In elegant tribute to Shakespeare’s enigmatic masterpiece, the jurors deadlocked, 6 to 6.

Sitting on the Eisenhower Theater stage under a towering portrait of Shakespeare, Kennedy told Joshua Drew, the young actor playing the sullen defendant, that the verdict “leaves us no choice but to remand you to the pages of our literary heritage.”