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An extra-ordinary trial? The Rote Armee Fraktion (RAF) trial in Stuttgart-Stammheim (1975-1977) The article analyses the trial which brought the core members of the first generation of the Rote Armee Fraktion ( RAF ) to a criminal court in Stuttgart-Stammheim between 1975 and 1977. The Stammheim trial was a judiciary landmark for the young Federal Republic, and the accused, together with their lawyers, took an active part in it. They aimed to prove that the trial was a case of ‘political justice’ and to demonstrate the inability of the State to abide by its own principles, thereby unveiling its ‘fascist nature’ and the fact that its democratic discourse was merely a sham. In order to prove this, they turned the law into a strategic tool, and used it as a weapon. This was a major problem for the representatives of the State: as the accused tried to force them out of the political arena, they were left with no choice but to rely even more heavily on the legal system and to try and reduce the judiciary procedure to a succession of technical acts. This tnal then offers a remarkable vista on the constraints weighing on judicial work, and more generally on a legally constituted State, perceived through the difficulties it has to face, and which in turn shape it.