The prosecutor was a man named Percy Yutar. Joffe described Yutar as one who was fond of bogus hysteria and fake dramatics.
On Sunday April 20, 1964, Mandela entered the dock to explain why the ANC used violence against apartheid. Mandela gave his speech before tens of thousands of people and supporters in Cape Town. Mandela ended this speech as follows: "During my lifetime, I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live and achieve, but, my Lord, if needs be, an ideal for which I am prepared to die." Mandela used the same words to finish the first speech he made when he was allowed out of the Pretoria prison. Joffe said that during Mandela's five hour statement "the silence became more and more profound, until it seemed that no one in the court dared move or breathe." .
There was a great fear of the death penalty among all the men, said Arthur Chaskalson, who was one of the defense attorneys. They were not sure whether they would receive the death penalty until the day the trial was over. On June 12, 1964 the eight men were sentenced to life in prison by Quartus de Wet. de Wet said that keeping them from the gallows was the only leniency he could show. To follow the apartheid rule (whites and blacks had to have separate public buildings,) there was a prison for white people named Pretoria prison where Goldberg was and there was Robben Island prison where Mandela and all the black people went. .
Before entering prison, Goldberg was an engineer, who turned into a bomb maker for the African National Congress (ANC). His parents were members of the Communist party in Cape Town where he was born in 1933.