As in Adolf Eichmann's trial 30 years earlier, one of the issues of the trial was to determine to what extent an individual should be held responsible in a chain of responsibility. Papon's lawyers argued that he was a mid-level official, not the person making decisions about whom to deport. His lawyers argued that he had done the most good he could in the circumstances and had ensured that those to be deported were treated well while in his custody. The prosecution argued that the defence of following orders was not sufficient and that he bore at least some of the responsibility for the deportations. Calling on assistance from the best historians of the period, they dismantled his arguments of having tried to "humanise" the conditions of deportations of the Jews.