James Monroe McHaney was an Arkansas lawyer who was asked in 1946 to serve as lead prosecutor in the Nuremberg trials in Germany. He was the son of former Arkansas Supreme Court justice Edgar McHaney. At age 28, James McHaney accepted the assignment and played a key role in the prosecution of doctors who participated in the Holocaust during World War II.
The Doctor's trial focused on German physicians accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity for systematically killing people they deemed unworthy of life, or conducting medical experiments on concentration camp prisoners without their consent.
The Nuremberg trials were an important step toward building an international system of justice. The Doctors' trial resulted in the creation of the Nuremberg Code, which remains a landmark document on medical research ethics.