Category: Trials

August 10, 1978 – Three members of the Ulrich family are killed in an accident involving a Ford Pinto, resulting in the first criminal prosecution of a US corporation for homicide - but the story is more complex than most people believe and teaches an

8/10/2021

NHTSA Photo from a collision test with a Ford Pinto

The Ford Pinto litigation refers to a group of over 100 lawsuits brought against the Ford Motor Company over deaths and injuries associated with a design flaw in the Pinto, a subcompact car that was manufactured and marketed by Ford Motor Company in North America from the 1971 to the 1980 model years.  On August 10, 1978, three teenage girls of the Ulrich family of Osceola, Indiana, were killed when the 1973 Pinto they were in was involved in a rear-end collision. The driver had stopped in the road to retrieve the car's gas cap which had been inadvertently left on the top of the car and subsequently fell onto the road. While stopped the Pinto was struck by another vehicle, which caused the Pinto to explode into flames.

The Ulrich incident was not the first such incident involving a fire following a rear end collision in a Pinto. However, it was unusual in that it lead to a criminal trial against the Ford Corporation which was indicted on three counts of reckless homicide, the first time a corporation had been charged with a homicide offense.  The reason that the Attorney General of Indiana chose to take such an extraordinary step was the publicity surrounding an earlier civil action against Ford involving a Pinto.

In February 1978, a civil jury in Grimshaw v. Ford Motor Co. had found Ford liable for the death of the driver and severe injuries to the passenger of another Pinto that had exploded when struck from behind. The plaintiffs in that case collaborated with Mother Jones, an anti-establishment magazine, and The Center for Auto Safety, a private advocacy group, to publicize information about Ford prior to trial. Specifically, an article in Mother Jones highlighted the existence of a report in which Ford was purported to have conducted a "cost-benefit" analysis which showed that it would be less expensive to pay tort damages for injuries and deaths arising from gas tank explosions than to redesign the vehicle to make it safer. The jury awarded $127.8 million in compensatory and punitive damages, the largest verdict ever awarded in a private action for product liability.

Subsequent interviews with the jury affirmed that the verdict was driven by the perceived disconnection between the use of corporate risk analysis and the tendency of the public to be offended by the apparent disregard for human life. Thus, when the Ulrich incident occurred six months after the Grimshaw verdict, the Indiana Attorney General decided that corporations, which are legally considered "persons," could be liable for negligently causing a death just as a natural person could.

While Grimshaw and the publicity it generated are still well known, the case of Indiana v. Ford Motor Co. is all but forgotten - and therein lies the reason that the case is notable, not merely because it was the first case of charging a corporation with homicide, but because the the more exacting standard of a criminal proceeding, and perhaps the lack of the pre-trial publicity that occurred in Grimshaw, resulted in a significantly different verdict.

At the criminal trial, the evidence showed that the "cost-benefit analysis," far from being a sinister, cold weighing of corporate profits against human life, was in fact a standard report prepared for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration as part of a commentary process for proposed changes to fuel system regulations in 1973, two years after the Pinto had gone into production. Ford's analysis compared the cost of improvements to the societal costs for injuries and deaths related to fires in cases of vehicle rollovers (not rear-end collisions) for all cars sold in the US by all manufacturers (not just the Pinto). The values assigned to serious burn injuries and loss of life in the report were based on values calculated by NHTSA in 1972. In the memo Ford estimated the cost of fuel system modifications to reduce fire risks in rollover events to be $11 per car across 12.5 million cars and light trucks, for a total of $137 million. The design changes were estimated to save 180 burn deaths and 180 serious injuries per year, a benefit to society of $49.5 million. These numbers were subsequently shown to be accurate.

It is widely believed that the existence of the cost-benefit analysis memo was deliberately hidden by Ford and only revealed as the result of a "whistleblower" from within the corporation. This is not the case, and is likely the result of the public confusing real events with a fictionalized version portrayed in the 1991 film Class Action. The memo was a public document and had been widely discussed in the media. The media coverage resulted in a petition from The Center for Auto Safety in 1974 to NHTSA seeking a recall of the Pinto. NHTSA, however, found that there was insufficient evidence that the design of the Pinto was deflective. Rather, the evidence showed that incidents of fires in Pintos was not significantly different from other subcompact cars, which had a higher incident of fires than larger vehicles for the simple reason that small vehicles afford less protective structure than larger ones.

Nonetheless, continued publicity resulted in NHTSA and Ford negotiating a recall to add safety features. To justify the recall, NHTSA substituted its usual static crash test using a moving barrier for a "bullet car" impact in which the Pinto was struck by test vehicle specifically designed to simulate a high speed impact which pierced the fuel tank, a design standard that had never been required of any vehicle. Also, rather than using a non-flammable test liquid, NHTSA use actual gasoline and filled the tank to capacity. The resulting image of a fireball engulfing the Pinto and incinerating the "passengers" has become standard fodder for stories on the failure of automotive safety design.

In the criminal trial in Indiana, Ford was able to present evidence that had been excluded from the Grimshaw case. Ford argued that it could not be held negligent for the alleged design defect because the 1973 vehicle design had met or exceeded all NHTSA requirements at the time.  A former head of the NHTSA, testifying on Ford's behalf, said the Pinto's design was no more or less safe than that of any other car in its class. Ford was acquitted of the charges.

Subsequent studies of the safety of the Pinto in comparison to other subcompacts showed that its overall injury and fatality rate was not significantly different from any other. With respect to fires caused by moderate to high speed impacts was in fact slightly lower than average for all cars, and just slightly higher than subcompacts as a class.

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August 5, 1735 – Freedom of the press: New York Weekly Journal writer John Peter Zenger is acquitted of seditious libel against the royal governor of New York, on the basis that what he had published was true.

8/5/2021

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John Peter Zenger (October 26, 1697 – July 28, 1746) was a German printer and journalist in New York City. Zenger printed The New York Weekly Journal. He was accused of libel in 1734 by William Cosby, the royal governor of New York, but the jury acquitted Zenger, who became a symbol for freedom of the press.

In 1733, Zenger began printing The New York Weekly Journal, which voiced opinions critical of the colonial governor, William Cosby. On November 17, 1734, on Cosby's orders, the sheriff arrested Zenger. After a grand jury refused to indict him, the Attorney General Richard Bradley charged him with libel in August 1735. Zenger's lawyers, Andrew Hamilton and William Smith, Sr., successfully argued that truth is a defense against charges of libel.

In 1733, Zenger printed copies of newspapers in New York to voice his disagreement with the actions of the newly appointed colonial governor William Cosby. On his arrival in New York City, Cosby had plunged into a rancorous quarrel with the council of the colony over his salary. Unable to control the colony's supreme court, he removed Chief Justice Lewis Morris, replacing him with James DeLancey of the Royal Party. Supported by members of the Popular Party, Zenger's New-York Weekly Journal continued to publish articles critical of the royal governor. Finally, Cosby issued a proclamation condemning the newspaper's "divers scandalous, virulent, false and seditious reflections."

Zenger was charged with libel. James Alexander was Zenger's first counsel, but the court found him in contempt and removed him from the case. After more than eight months in prison, Zenger went to trial, defended by the Philadelphia lawyer Andrew Hamilton and the New York lawyer William Smith, Sr. The case was now a cause célèbre, with public interest at fever-pitch. Rebuffed repeatedly by chief justice James DeLancey during the trial, Hamilton decided to plead his client's case directly to the jury. After the lawyers for both sides finished their arguments, the jury retired, only to return in ten minutes with a verdict of not guilty.

In defending Zenger in this landmark case, Hamilton and Smith attempted to establish the precedent that a statement, even if defamatory, is not libelous if it can be proved, thus affirming freedom of the press in America; however, succeeding royal governors clamped down on freedom of the press until the American Revolution. This case is the groundwork of freedom of the press, not its legal precedent. As late as 1804, the journalist Harry Croswell lost a series of prosecutions and appeals because truth was not a defense against libel, as decided by the New York Court of Appeals in People v. Croswell. It was only the following year that the assembly, reacting to this verdict, passed a law that allowed truth as a defense against a charge of libel.

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August 4, 1892 – The father and stepmother of Lizzie Borden are found murdered in their Fall River, Massachusetts home. She was tried and acquitted for the crimes a year later.

8/4/2021

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Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother 40 whacks, and when she saw what she had done, she gave her father 41.

With the possible exception of the presumed murder of the "Two Princes in the Tower," no double murder has been more celebrated in song, verse and literature than the killing of Andrew Jackson Borden and his wife Abby Borden. Although Lizzie Borden was charged with the killing of her father and step-mother, she was acquitted. While it has been frequently speculated that the jury was simply unable to believe that a young woman (Borden was 32, and considered a "spinster" in the terminology of the era) with a devout Christian upbringing could commit a double murder, especially one so brutal as the killing of the Bordens.

However, within legal circles, the consensus is that the prosecution simply did not have sufficient evidence to convince the jury of Lizzie's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Criminal forensic science was in its infancy in the late 19th Century and without an eyewitness, it was often difficult to establish a clear connection between the suspect with a presumed motion to commit the crime and the crime itself.

Lizze Borden's trial took place in New Bedford starting on June 5, 1893. Prosecuting attorneys were Hosea M. Knowlton and future United States Supreme Court Justice William H. Moody; defending were Andrew V. Jennings, Melvin O. Adams, and former Massachusetts governor George D. Robinson.

Five days before the trial's commencement, on June 1, another axe murder occurred in Fall River. This time the victim was Bertha Manchester, who was found hacked to death in her kitchen. The similarities between the Manchester and Bordens' murders were striking and noted by jurors. What was not known at the time was that Jose Correa de Mello, a Portuguese immigrant, who was later convicted of Manchester's murder in 1894, was determined not to have been in the vicinity of Fall River at the time of the Borden murders.

One difficulty with the prosecution's case was that no murder weapon was recovered. While a several hatchets and a hatchet head had been found in the basement, there was conflicting testimony as to whether a handle for the separate head had been found also. Although none of the the hatchet heads could not conclusively be shown to match the weapon or weapons used to kill the Bordens, police theorized that the separate head had been used to commit the murders and the handle was subsequently removed and burned because it contained bloodstains. However, no trace of blood or other evidence of the hatchet being used in the murders was found and the prosecution could not explain why the killer would have destroyed the handle, rather than disposing of the weapon intact..

Another problem with the case was creating a timeline for the murders that matched known facts. Andrew Borden left the house at 9am for his customary morning walk and returned around 10:30. the prosecution's theory was that during his absence, Lizzie killed her stepmother in an upstairs guestroom.

The Borden's maid, Maggie Sullivan, testified that she had to open the front door to the home for Andrew Borden because his key would not unlock the door and that while at doing so she heard Lizzie laughing from upstairs, where Abby's body would have been plainly visible if the door of the guestroom were open. Sullivan further testified that she last saw Andrew Borden alive just before 11am in the sitting room with Lizzie.

Lizzie, however, maintained that she had been in the barn near the house for 20 to 30 minutes before 11am. Two independent witnesses saw Lizzie leave the barn just after 11am. Sullivan testified that at 11:10, Lizzie called to her from downstairs, saying "Maggie, come quick! Father's dead. Somebody came in and killed him."

While there is no question that Abby Borden was killed before her husband, the prosecution's theory was that Borden had killed her shortly after Andrew Borden left and remained upstairs with the body until 10:30. However, there was no evidence that Lizzie was agitated or that any telltale signs of the killing were on her clothing, despite that prosecution asserting that Borden later burned her dress to destroy blo0dstains. Police were criticized for their haphazard investigation during which they failed to examine Lizzie's clothing for evidence of blood or tissue.

Although the prosecution made much of Sullivan's testimony that she had heard Borden upstairs at 10:30, Sullivan also was upstairs and reported seeing nothing amiss. The prosecution argued that Borden closed the door to the guestroom before going downstairs although doors of the bedrooms were usually left open when unoccupied to aid in ventilation.

Police stated that under interrogation Lizzie gave conflicting statements and seemed unusually calm. It has been speculated, however, that she may have been in a state of shock. Similarly when called to testify at the inquest, Lizzie was taking morphine under a prescription and this likely effected both her demeanor and the clarity of her testimony.

The presiding Associate Justice, Justin Dewey (who had been appointed by Robinson, the defense attorney, when he was governor), delivered a lengthy summary that supported the defense as his charge to the jury before it was sent to deliberate on June 20, 1893.[After an hour and a half of deliberation, the jury acquitted Borden of the murders.

Although acquitted at trial, Borden remains the prime suspect in her father's and stepmother's murders. Nonetheless, many of speculated on other possible suspects including Sullivan, Emma Borden (Lizzie's sister) -- whose alibi was never verified -- John Morse, the brother of Andrew Borden's first wife who was staying with the family and who gave police  an "absurdly perfect and overdetailed alibi for the death of Abby Borden."

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July 11, 1960 – To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is first published, in the United States.

7/11/2021

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To Kill a Mockingbird is a novel by the American author Harper Lee. It was published in 1960 and was instantly successful. In the United States, it is widely read in high schools and middle schools. To Kill a Mockingbird has become a classic of modern American literature, winning the Pulitzer Prize. The plot and characters are loosely based on Lee's observations of her family, her neighbors and an event that occurred near her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama, in 1936, when she was ten.

Despite dealing with the serious issues of rape and racial inequality, the novel is renowned for its warmth and humor. Atticus Finch, the narrator's father, has served as a moral hero for many readers and as a model of integrity for lawyers. The historian Joseph Crespino explains, "In the twentieth century, To Kill a Mockingbird is probably the most widely read book dealing with race in America, and its main character, Atticus Finch, the most enduring fictional image of racial heroism." As a Southern Gothic and Bildungsroman novel, the primary themes of To Kill a Mockingbird involve racial injustice and the destruction of innocence. Scholars have noted that Lee also addresses issues of class, courage, compassion, and gender roles in the Deep South. The book is widely taught in schools in the United States with lessons that emphasize tolerance and decry prejudice. Despite its themes, To Kill a Mockingbird has been subject to campaigns for removal from public classrooms, often challenged for its use of racial epithets. In 2006, British librarians ranked the book ahead of the Bible as one "every adult should read before they die".

Reaction to the novel varied widely upon publication. Despite the number of copies sold and its widespread use in education, literary analysis of it is sparse. Author Mary McDonough Murphy, who collected individual impressions of To Kill a Mockingbird by several authors and public figures, calls the book "an astonishing phenomenon". It was adapted into an Academy Award-winning film in 1962 by director Robert Mulligan, with a screenplay by Horton Foote. Since 1990, a play based on the novel has been performed annually in Harper Lee's hometown.

To Kill a Mockingbird was Lee's only published book until Go Set a Watchman, an earlier draft of To Kill a Mockingbird, was published on July 14, 2015. Lee continued to respond to her work's impact until her death in February 2016, although she had refused any personal publicity for herself or the novel since 1964.

The story, told by the six-year-old Jean Louise Finch, takes place during three years (1933–35) of the Great Depression in the fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama, the seat of Maycomb County. Nicknamed Scout, she lives with her older brother Jeremy, nicknamed Jem, and their widowed father Atticus, a middle-aged lawyer. Jem and Scout befriend a boy named Dill, who visits Maycomb to stay with his aunt each summer. The three children are terrified, yet fascinated by their neighbor, the reclusive Arthur "Boo" Radley. The adults of Maycomb are hesitant to talk about Boo, and few of them have seen him for many years. The children feed one another's imagination with rumors about his appearance and reasons for remaining hidden, and they fantasize about how to get him out of his house. After two summers of friendship with Dill, Scout and Jem find that someone is leaving them small gifts in a tree outside the Radley place. Several times the mysterious Boo makes gestures of affection to the children, but, to their disappointment, he never appears in person.

Judge Taylor appoints Atticus to defend Tom Robinson, a black man who has been accused of raping a young white woman, Mayella Ewell. Although many of Maycomb's citizens disapprove, Atticus agrees to defend Tom to the best of his ability. Other children taunt Jem and Scout for Atticus's actions, calling him a "nigger-lover". Scout is tempted to stand up for her father's honor by fighting, even though he has told her not to. One night, Atticus faces a group of men intent on lynching Tom. This crisis is averted in an unexpected manner: Scout, Jem, and Dill show up, and Scout inadvertently breaks the mob mentality by recognizing and talking to a classmate's father, and the would-be lynchers disperse.

Atticus does not want Jem and Scout to be present at Tom Robinson's trial. No seat is available on the main floor, but the Rev. Sykes invites Jem, Scout, and Dill to watch from the colored balcony. Atticus establishes that Mayella and Bob Ewell are lying. It is revealed that Mayella made sexual advances toward Tom, subsequently resulting in her being beaten by her father. The townspeople refer to the Ewells as "white trash" who are not to be trusted, but the jury convicts Tom regardless. Jem's faith in justice is badly shaken. Atticus is hopeful that he can get the verdict overturned, but Tom is shot and killed while trying to escape from prison.

Despite Tom's conviction, Bob Ewell is humiliated by the events of the trial, Atticus explaining that he "destroyed [Ewell's] last shred of credibility at that trial." Ewell vows revenge, spitting in Atticus' face, trying to break into the judge's house and menacing Tom Robinson's widow. Finally, he attacks Jem and Scout while they are walking home on a dark night after the school Halloween pageant. Jem suffers a broken arm in the struggle, but amid the confusion, someone comes to the children's rescue. The mysterious man carries Jem home, where Scout realizes that he is Boo Radley.

Sheriff Tate arrives and discovers Ewell dead from a knife wound. Atticus believes that Jem was responsible, but Tate is certain it was Boo. The sheriff decides that, to protect Boo's privacy, he will report that Ewell simply fell on his own knife during the attack. Boo asks Scout to walk him home. After she says goodbye to him at his front door, he disappears, never to be seen again by Scout. While standing on the Radley porch, Scout imagines life from Boo's perspective.

When the book was released, reviewers noted that it was divided into two parts, and opinion was mixed about Lee's ability to connect them. The first part of the novel concerns the children's fascination with Boo Radley and their feelings of safety and comfort in the neighborhood. Reviewers were generally charmed by Scout and Jem's observations of their quirky neighbors. One writer was so impressed by Lee's detailed explanations of the people of Maycomb that he categorized the book as Southern romantic regionalism. This sentimentalism can be seen in Lee's representation of the Southern caste system to explain almost every character's behavior in the novel. Scout's Aunt Alexandra attributes Maycomb's inhabitants' faults and advantages to genealogy (families that have gambling streaks and drinking streaks), and the narrator sets the action and characters amid a finely detailed background of the Finch family history and the history of Maycomb. This regionalist theme is further reflected in Mayella Ewell's apparent powerlessness to admit her advances toward Tom Robinson, and Scout's definition of "fine folks" being people with good sense who do the best they can with what they have. The South itself, with its traditions and taboos, seems to drive the plot more than the characters.

The second part of the novel deals with what book reviewer Harding LeMay termed "the spirit-corroding shame of the civilized white Southerner in the treatment of the Negro". In the years following its release, many reviewers considered To Kill a Mockingbird a novel primarily concerned with race relations. Claudia Durst Johnson considers it "reasonable to believe" that the novel was shaped by two events involving racial issues in Alabama: Rosa Parks' refusal to yield her seat on a city bus to a white person, which sparked the Montgomery bus boycott, and the 1956 riots at the University of Alabama after Autherine Lucy and Polly Myers were admitted (Myers eventually withdrew her application and Lucy was expelled, but reinstated in 1980). In writing about the historical context of the novel's construction, two other literary scholars remark: "To Kill a Mockingbird was written and published amidst the most significant and conflict-ridden social change in the South since the Civil War and Reconstruction. Inevitably, despite its mid-1930s setting, the story told from the perspective of the 1950s voices the conflicts, tensions, and fears induced by this transition."

Scholar Patrick Chura, who suggests Emmett Till was a model for Tom Robinson, enumerates the injustices endured by the fictional Tom that Till also faced. Chura notes the icon of the black rapist causing harm to the representation of the "mythologized vulnerable and sacred Southern womanhood". Any transgressions by black males that merely hinted at sexual contact with white females during the time the novel was set often resulted in a punishment of death for the accused. Tom Robinson's trial was juried by poor white farmers who convicted him despite overwhelming evidence of his innocence, as more educated and moderate white townspeople supported the jury's decision. Furthermore, the victim of racial injustice in To Kill a Mockingbird was physically impaired, which made him unable to commit the act he was accused of, but also crippled him in other ways. Roslyn Siegel includes Tom Robinson as an example of the recurring motif among white Southern writers of the black man as "stupid, pathetic, defenseless, and dependent upon the fair dealing of the whites, rather than his own intelligence to save him". Although Tom is spared from being lynched, he is killed with excessive violence during an attempted escape from prison, being shot seventeen times.

The theme of racial injustice appears symbolically in the novel as well. For example, Atticus must shoot a rabid dog, even though it is not his job to do so. Carolyn Jones argues that the dog represents prejudice within the town of Maycomb, and Atticus, who waits on a deserted street to shoot the dog, must fight against the town's racism without help from other white citizens. He is also alone when he faces a group intending to lynch Tom Robinson and once more in the courthouse during Tom's trial. Lee even uses dreamlike imagery from the mad dog incident to describe some of the courtroom scenes. Jones writes, "[t]he real mad dog in Maycomb is the racism that denies the humanity of Tom Robinson ... When Atticus makes his summation to the jury, he literally bares himself to the jury's and the town's anger."

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July 10, 1925 – Scopes Trial: In Dayton, Tennessee, the so-called "Monkey Trial" begins of John T. Scopes, a young high school science teacher accused of teaching evolution in violation of the Butler Act.

7/10/2021

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John T. Scopes

The Scopes Trial, formally known as The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes and commonly referred to as the Scopes Monkey Trial, was an American legal case in July 1925 in which a high school teacher, John T. Scopes, was accused of violating Tennessee's Butler Act, which had made it unlawful to teach human evolution in any state-funded school. The trial was deliberately staged in order to attract publicity to the small town of Dayton, Tennessee, where it was held. Scopes was unsure whether he had ever actually taught evolution, but he incriminated himself deliberately so the case could have a defendant.

Scopes was found guilty and fined $100 (equivalent to $1,500 in 2020), but the verdict was overturned on a technicality. The trial served its purpose of drawing intense national publicity, as national reporters flocked to Dayton to cover the big-name lawyers who had agreed to represent each side. William Jennings Bryan, three-time presidential candidate and former Secretary of State, argued for the prosecution, while Clarence Darrow served as the defense attorney for Scopes. The trial publicized the Fundamentalist–Modernist controversy, which set Modernists, who said evolution was not inconsistent with religion, against Fundamentalists, who said the Word of God as revealed in the Bible took priority over all human knowledge. The case was thus seen both as a theological contest and as a trial on whether modern science should be taught in schools.

State Representative John Washington Butler, a Tennessee farmer and head of the World Christian Fundamentals Association, lobbied state legislatures to pass anti-evolution laws. He succeeded when the Butler Act was passed in Tennessee, on March 25, 1925. Butler later stated, "I didn't know anything about evolution ... I'd read in the papers that boys and girls were coming home from school and telling their fathers and mothers that the Bible was all nonsense." Tennessee governor Austin Peay signed the law to gain support among rural legislators, but believed the law would neither be enforced nor interfere with education in Tennessee schools. William Jennings Bryan thanked Peay enthusiastically for the bill: "The Christian parents of the state owe you a debt of gratitude for saving their children from the poisonous influence of an unproven hypothesis."

In response, the American Civil Liberties Union financed a test case in which John Scopes, a Tennessee high school science teacher, agreed to be tried for violating the Act. Scopes, who had substituted for the regular biology teacher, was charged on May 5, 1925, with teaching evolution from a chapter in George William Hunter's textbook, Civic Biology: Presented in Problems (1914), which described the theory of evolution, race, and eugenics. The two sides brought in the biggest legal names in the nation, William Jennings Bryan for the prosecution and Clarence Darrow for the defense, and the trial was followed on radio transmissions throughout the United States.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) offered to defend anyone accused of teaching the theory of evolution in defiance of the Butler Act. On April 5, 1925, George Rappleyea, local manager for the Cumberland Coal and Iron Company, arranged a meeting with county superintendent of schools Walter White and local attorney Sue K. Hicks at Robinson's Drug Store, convincing them that the controversy of such a trial would give Dayton much needed publicity. According to Robinson, Rappleyea said, "As it is, the law is not enforced. If you win, it will be enforced. If I win, the law will be repealed. We're game, aren't we?" The men then summoned 24-year-old John T. Scopes, a Dayton high school science and math teacher. The group asked Scopes to admit to teaching the theory of evolution.

Rappleyea pointed out that, while the Butler Act prohibited the teaching of the theory of evolution, the state required teachers to use a textbook that explicitly described and endorsed the theory of evolution, and that teachers were, therefore, effectively required to break the law. Scopes mentioned that while he couldn't remember whether he had actually taught evolution in class, he had, however, gone through the evolution chart and chapter with the class. Scopes added to the group: "If you can prove that I've taught evolution and that I can qualify as a defendant, then I'll be willing to stand trial."

Scopes urged students to testify against him and coached them in their answers. He was indicted on May 25, after three students testified against him at the grand jury; one student afterwards told reporters, "I believe in part of evolution, but I don't believe in the monkey business." Judge John T. Raulston accelerated the convening of the grand jury and "... all but instructed the grand jury to indict Scopes, despite the meager evidence against him and the widely reported stories questioning whether the willing defendant had ever taught evolution in the classroom".[16] Scopes was charged with having taught from the chapter on evolution to a high-school class in violation of the Butler Act and nominally arrested, though he was never actually detained. Paul Patterson, owner of The Baltimore Sun, put up $500 in bail for Scopes.

The original prosecutors were Herbert E. and Sue K. Hicks, two brothers who were local attorneys and friends of Scopes, but the prosecution was ultimately led by Tom Stewart, a graduate of Cumberland School of Law, who later became a U.S. Senator. Stewart was aided by Dayton attorney Gordon McKenzie, who supported the anti-evolution bill on religious grounds, and described evolution as "detrimental to our morality" and an assault on "the very citadel of our Christian religion".

Baptist pastor William Bell Riley, the founder and president of the World Christian Fundamentals Association, was instrumental in calling lawyer and three-time Democratic presidential nominee, former United States Secretary of State, and lifelong Presbyterian William Jennings Bryan to act as that organization's counsel. Bryan had originally been invited by Sue Hicks to become an associate of the prosecution and Bryan had readily accepted, despite the fact he had not tried a case in thirty-six years. As Scopes pointed out to James Presley in the book Center of the Storm, on which the two collaborated: "After [Bryan] was accepted by the state as a special prosecutor in the case, there was never any hope of containing the controversy within the bounds of constitutionality."

In response, the defense sought out Clarence Darrow, an agnostic. Darrow originally declined, fearing his presence would create a circus atmosphere, but eventually realized that the trial would be a circus with or without him, and agreed to lend his services to the defense, later saying he "realized there was no limit to the mischief that might be accomplished unless the country was aroused to the evil at hand". After many changes back and forth, the defense team consisted of Darrow, ACLU attorney Arthur Garfield Hays, Dudley Field Malone, an international divorce lawyer who had worked at the State Department, W.O. Thompson, who was Darrow's law partner, and F.B. McElwee. The defense was also assisted by librarian and Biblical authority Charles Francis Potter, who was a Modernist Unitarian preacher.

The prosecution team was led by Tom Stewart, district attorney for the 18th Circuit (and future United States Senator), and included, in addition to Herbert and Sue Hicks, Ben B. McKenzie and William Jennings Bryan.

The trial was covered by journalists from the South and around the world, including H. L. Mencken for The Baltimore Sun, which was also paying part of the defense's expenses. It was Mencken who provided the trial with its most colorful labels such as the "Monkey Trial" of "the infidel Scopes". It was also the first United States trial to be broadcast on national radio.

The ACLU had originally intended to oppose the Butler Act on the grounds that it violated the teacher's individual rights and academic freedom, and was therefore unconstitutional. Principally because of Clarence Darrow, this strategy changed as the trial progressed. The earliest argument proposed by the defense once the trial had begun was that there was actually no conflict between evolution and the creation account in the Bible; later, this viewpoint would be called theistic evolution. In support of this claim, they brought in eight experts on evolution. But other than Dr. Maynard Metcalf, a zoologist from Johns Hopkins University, the judge would not allow these experts to testify in person. Instead, they were allowed to submit written statements so their evidence could be used at the appeal. In response to this decision, Darrow made a sarcastic comment to Judge Raulston (as he often did throughout the trial) on how he had been agreeable only on the prosecution's suggestions. Darrow apologized the next day, keeping himself from being found in contempt of court.

The presiding judge, John T. Raulston, was accused of being biased towards the prosecution and frequently clashed with Darrow. At the outset of the trial, Raulston quoted Genesis and the Butler Act. He also warned the jury not to judge the merit of the law (which would become the focus of the trial) but on the violation of the Act, which he called a 'high misdemeanor'. The jury foreman himself was unconvinced of the merit of the Act but he acted, as did most of the jury, on the instructions of the judge.

Bryan chastised evolution for teaching children that humans were but one of 35,000 types of mammals and bemoaned the notion that human beings were descended "Not even from American monkeys, but from old world monkeys".

Darrow responded for the defense in a speech that was universally considered the oratorical climax of the trial.[29] Arousing fears of "inquisitions", Darrow argued that the Bible should be preserved in the realm of theology and morality and not put into a course of science. In his conclusion, Darrow declared that Bryan's "duel to the death" against evolution should not be made one-sided by a court ruling that took away the chief witnesses for the defense. Darrow promised there would be no duel because "there is never a duel with the truth." The courtroom went wild when Darrow finished; Scopes declared Darrow’s speech to be the dramatic high point of the entire trial and insisted that part of the reason Bryan wanted to go on the stand was to regain some of his tarnished glory.

On the sixth day of the trial, the defense ran out of witnesses. The judge declared that all the defense testimony on the Bible was irrelevant and should not be presented to the jury (which had been excluded during the defense). On the seventh day of the trial, the defense asked the judge to call Bryan as a witness to question him on the Bible, as their own experts had been rendered irrelevant; Darrow had planned this the day before and called Bryan a "Bible expert". This move surprised those present in the court, as Bryan was a counsel for the prosecution and Bryan himself (according to a journalist reporting the trial) never made a claim of being an expert, although he did tout his knowledge of the Bible. This testimony revolved around several questions regarding Biblical stories and Bryan's beliefs (as shown below); this testimony culminated in Bryan declaring that Darrow was using the court to "slur the Bible" while Darrow replied that Bryan's statements on the Bible were "foolish".

On the seventh day of the trial, Clarence Darrow took the unorthodox step of calling William Jennings Bryan, counsel for the prosecution, to the stand as a witness in an effort to demonstrate that belief in the historicity of the Bible and its many accounts of miracles was unreasonable. Bryan accepted, on the understanding that Darrow would in turn submit to questioning by Bryan. Although Hays would claim in his autobiography that the examination of Bryan was unplanned, Darrow spent the night before in preparation. The scientists the defense had brought to Dayton—and Charles Francis Potter, a modernist minister who had engaged in a series of public debates on evolution with the fundamentalist preacher John Roach Straton—prepared topics and questions for Darrow to address to Bryan on the witness stand. Kirtley Mather, chairman of the geology department at Harvard and also a devout Baptist, played Bryan and answered questions as he believed Bryan would. Raulston had adjourned court to the stand on the courthouse lawn, ostensibly because he was "afraid of the building" with so many spectators crammed into the courtroom, but probably because of the stifling heat.

An area of questioning involved the book of Genesis, including questions about whether Eve was actually created from Adam's rib, where Cain got his wife, and how many people lived in Ancient Egypt. Darrow used these examples to suggest that the stories of the Bible could not be scientific and should not be used in teaching science with Darrow telling Bryan, "You insult every man of science and learning in the world because he does not believe in your fool religion." Bryan's declaration in response was, "The reason I am answering is not for the benefit of the superior court. It is to keep these gentlemen from saying I was afraid to meet them and let them question me, and I want the Christian world to know that any atheist, agnostic, unbeliever, can question me anytime as to my belief in God, and I will answer him."

Stewart objected for the prosecution, demanding to know the legal purpose of Darrow's questioning. Bryan, gauging the effect the session was having, snapped that its purpose was "to cast ridicule on everybody who believes in the Bible". Darrow, with equal vehemence, retorted, "We have the purpose of preventing bigots and ignoramuses from controlling the education of the United States."

A few more questions followed in the charged open-air courtroom. Darrow asked where Cain got his wife; Bryan answered that he would "leave the agnostics to hunt for her". When Darrow addressed the issue of the temptation of Eve by the serpent, Bryan insisted that the Bible be quoted verbatim rather than allowing Darrow to paraphrase it in his own terms. However, after another angry exchange, Judge Raulston banged his gavel, adjourning the court.

The confrontation between Bryan and Darrow lasted approximately two hours on the afternoon of the seventh day of the trial. It is likely that it would have continued the following morning but for Judge Raulston's announcement that he considered the whole examination irrelevant to the case and his decision that it should be "expunged" from the record. Thus Bryan was denied the chance to cross-examine the defense lawyers in return, although after the trial Bryan would distribute nine questions to the press to bring out Darrow's "religious attitude". The questions and Darrow's short answers were published in newspapers the day after the trial ended, with The New York Times characterizing Darrow as answering Bryan's questions "with his agnostic's creed, 'I don't know,' except where he could deny them with his belief in natural, immutable law".

Scopes never testified since there was never a factual issue as to whether he had taught evolution. Scopes later admitted that, in reality, he was unsure of whether he had taught evolution (another reason the defense did not want him to testify), but the point was not contested at the trial.

After eight days of trial, it took the jury only nine minutes to deliberate. Scopes was found guilty on July 21 and ordered by Raulston to pay a $100 fine (equivalent to $1,500 in 2020). Raulston imposed the fine before Scopes was given an opportunity to say anything about why the court should not impose punishment upon him and after Neal brought the error to the judge's attention the defendant spoke for the first and only time in court: Your honor, I feel that I have been convicted of violating an unjust statute. I will continue in the future, as I have in the past, to oppose this law in any way I can. Any other action would be in violation of my ideal of academic freedom—that is, to teach the truth as guaranteed in our constitution, of personal and religious freedom. I think the fine is unjust.

Although the Tennessee Supreme Court upheld the statute as constitutional, it reversed Scopes conviction on technical grounds because the judge, not the jury, imposed the fine. At that time, only a jury could impose a fine of greater than $50. Because Scopes was not longer employed by the state, the Supreme Court simply dismissed the case rather than remand it back for a new sentencing proceeding.

In 1968, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in Epperson v. Arkansas 393 U.S. 97 (1968) that such bans contravene the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment because their primary purpose is religious. Tennessee had repealed the Butler Act the previous year.

Bryan died suddenly five days after the trial's conclusion. The connection between the trial and his death is still debated by historians.

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July 6, 1456 – A retrial verdict acquits Joan of Arc of heresy 25 years after her death, declaring her to be a martyr.

7/6/2021

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Of the many trials in history that can be view as a miscarriage of justice, among the most infamous was that of Jeanne d'Arc, more commonly known as Joan of Arc, who was found guilty of witchcraft, heresy and a variety of other ecclesiastical crimes and burned at the stake on May 30, 1431. What is not generally known is that "Maid of Orleans" was granted a retrial of sorts. In 1456, an inquisitorial court authorized by Pope Callixtus III examined the trial, debunked the charges against her, pronounced her innocent, and declared her a martyr. In the 16th century she became a symbol of the Catholic League, and in 1803 she was declared a national symbol of France by the decision of Napoleon Bonaparte. She was beatified by the Catholic Church in 1909 and canonized in 1920.

Joan was the daughter of Jacques d'Arc and Isabelle Romée, living in Domrémy, a village which was then in the French part of the Duchy of Bar. Joan's parents owned about 50 acres (20 hectares) of land and her father supplemented his farming work with a minor position as a village official, collecting taxes and heading the local watch. They lived in an isolated patch of eastern France that remained loyal to the French crown despite being surrounded by pro-Burgundian lands. Several local raids occurred during her childhood and on one occasion her village was burned. Joan was illiterate and it is believed that her letters were dictated by her to scribes and she signed her letters with the help of others.

At her trial, Joan stated that she was about 19 years old, which implies she thought she was born around 1412. She later testified that she experienced her first vision in 1425 at the age of 13, when she was in her "father's garden" and saw visions of figures she identified as Saint Michael, Saint Catherine, and Saint Margaret, who told her to drive out the English and take the Dauphin to Reims for his consecration. She said she cried when they left, as they were so beautiful.

At the age of 16, she asked a relative named Durand Lassois to take her to the nearby town of Vaucouleurs, where she petitioned the garrison commander, Robert de Baudricourt, for an armed escort to take her to the French Royal Court at Chinon. Baudricourt's sarcastic response did not deter her. She returned the following January and gained support from two of Baudricourt's soldiers: Jean de Metz and Bertrand de Poulengy. According to Jean de Metz, she told him that "I must be at the King's side ... there will be no help (for the kingdom) if not from me. Although I would rather have remained spinning [wool] at my mother's side ... yet must I go and must I do this thing, for my Lord wills that I do so." Under the auspices of Jean de Metz and Bertrand de Poulengy, she was given a second meeting, where she made a prediction about a military reversal at the Battle of Rouvray near Orléans several days before messengers arrived to report it. According to the Journal du Siége d'Orléans, which portrays Joan as a miraculous figure, Joan came to know of the battle through "Divine grace" while tending her flocks in Lorraine and used this divine revelation to persuade Baudricourt to take her to the Dauphin.

Robert de Baudricourt granted Joan an escort to visit Chinon after news from Orleans confirmed her assertion of the defeat. She made the journey through hostile Burgundian territory disguised as a male soldier, a fact that would later lead to charges of "cross-dressing" against her, although her escort viewed it as a normal precaution. Two of the members of her escort said they and the people of Vaucouleurs provided her with this clothing, and had suggested it to her.

Joan's first meeting with Charles took place at the Royal Court in the town of Chinon in 1429, when she was aged 17 and he 26. After arriving at the Court she made a strong impression on Charles during a private conference with him. During this time Charles' mother-in-law Yolande of Aragon was planning to finance a relief expedition to Orléans. Joan asked for permission to travel with the army and wear protective armor, which was provided by the Royal government. She depended on donated items for her armor, horse, sword, banner, and other items utilized by her entourage. Historian Stephen W. Richey explains her attraction to the royal court by pointing out that they may have viewed her as the only source of hope for a regime that was near collapse:

After years of one humiliating defeat after another, both the military and civil leadership of France were demoralized and discredited. When the Dauphin Charles granted Joan's urgent request to be equipped for war and placed at the head of his army, his decision must have been based in large part on the knowledge that every orthodox, every rational option had been tried and had failed. Only a regime in the final straits of desperation would pay any heed to an illiterate farm girl who said that the voice of God was instructing her to take charge of her country's army and lead it to victory

Upon her arrival on the scene, Joan effectively turned the longstanding Anglo-French conflict into a religious war,a course of action that was not without risk. Charles' advisers were worried that unless Joan's orthodoxy could be established beyond doubt—that she was not a heretic or a sorceress—Charles' enemies could easily make the allegation that his crown was a gift from the devil. To circumvent this possibility, the Dauphin ordered background inquiries and a theological examination at Poitiers to verify her morality. In April 1429, the commission of inquiry "declared her to be of irreproachable life, a good Christian, possessed of the virtues of humility, honesty and simplicity." The theologians at Poitiers did not render a decision on the issue of divine inspiration; rather, they informed the Dauphin that there was a "favorable presumption" to be made on the divine nature of her mission. This convinced Charles, but they also stated that he had an obligation to put Joan to the test. "To doubt or abandon her without suspicion of evil would be to repudiate the Holy Spirit and to become unworthy of God's aid", they declared. They recommended that her claims should be put to the test by seeing if she could lift the siege of Orléans as she had predicted.

She arrived at the besieged city of Orléans on 29 April 1429. Jean d'Orléans, the acting head of the ducal family of Orléans on behalf of his captive half-brother, initially excluded her from war councils and failed to inform her when the army engaged the enemy. However, his decision to exclude her did not prevent her presence at most councils and battles. The extent of her actual military participation and leadership is a subject of debate among historians. On the one hand, Joan stated that she carried her banner in battle and had never killed anyone, preferring her banner "forty times" better than a sword; and the army was always directly commanded by a nobleman, such as the Duke of Alençon for example. On the other hand, many of these same noblemen stated that Joan had a profound effect on their decisions since they often accepted the advice she gave them, believing her advice was divinely inspired. In either case, historians agree that the army enjoyed remarkable success during her brief time with it.

A truce with England during the following few months left Joan with little to do. On 23 March 1430, she dictated a threatening letter to the Hussites, a dissident group which had broken with the Roman Catholic Church on a number of doctrinal points and had defeated several previous crusades sent against them. Joan's letter promises to "remove your madness and foul superstition, taking away either your heresy or your lives." Joan, an ardent Catholic who hated all forms of heresy, also sent a letter challenging the English to leave France and go with her to Bohemia to fight the Hussites, an offer that went unanswered.

The truce with England quickly came to an end. Joan traveled to Compiègne the following May to help defend the city against an English and Burgundian siege. On 23 May 1430 she was with a force that attempted to attack the Burgundian camp at Margny north of Compiègne, but was ambushed and captured. When the troops began to withdraw toward the nearby fortifications of Compiègne after the advance of an additional force of 6,000 Burgundians, Joan stayed with the rear guard. Burgundian troops surrounded the rear guard, and she was pulled off her horse by an archer. She agreed to surrender to a pro-Burgundian nobleman named Lionel of Wandomme, a member of Jean de Luxembourg's unit.
Joan was imprisoned by the Burgundians at Beaurevoir Castle. She made several escape attempts, on one occasion jumping from her 70-foot (21 m) tower, landing on the soft earth of a dry moat, after which she was moved to the Burgundian town of Arras. The English negotiated with their Burgundian allies to transfer her to their custody, with Bishop Pierre Cauchon of Beauvais, an English partisan, assuming a prominent role in these negotiations and her later trial.[better source needed] The final agreement called for the English to pay the sum of 10,000 livres tournoisto obtain her from Jean de Luxembourg, a member of the Council of Duke Philip of Burgundy.

The English moved Joan to the city of Rouen, which served as their main headquarters in France. The Armagnacs attempted to rescue her several times by launching military campaigns toward Rouen while she was held there. One campaign occurred during the winter of 1430–1431, another in March 1431, and one in late May shortly before her execution. These attempts were beaten back. Charles VII threatened to "exact vengeance" upon Burgundian troops whom his forces had captured and upon "the English and women of England" in retaliation for their treatment of Joan.

The trial for heresy was politically motivated. The tribunal was composed entirely of pro-English and Burgundian clerics, and overseen by English commanders including the Duke of Bedford and the Earl of Warwick. In the words of the British medievalist Beverly Boyd, the trial was meant by the English Crown to be "a ploy to get rid of a bizarre prisoner of war with maximum embarrassment to their enemies". Legal proceedings commenced on 9 January 1431 at Rouen, the seat of the English occupation government. The procedure was suspect on a number of points, which would later provoke criticism of the tribunal by the chief inquisitor who investigated the trial after the war.

Under ecclesiastical law, Bishop Cauchon lacked jurisdiction over the case. Cauchon owed his appointment to his partisan support of the English Crown, which financed the trial. The low standard of evidence used in the trial also violated inquisitorial rules. Clerical notary Nicolas Bailly, who was commissioned to collect testimony against Joan, could find no adverse evidence. Without such evidence the court lacked grounds to initiate a trial. Opening a trial anyway, the court also violated ecclesiastical law by denying Joan the right to a legal adviser. In addition, stacking the tribunal entirely with pro-English clergy violated the medieval Church's requirement that heresy trials be judged by an impartial or balanced group of clerics. Upon the opening of the first public examination, Joan complained that those present were all partisans against her and asked for "ecclesiastics of the French side" to be invited in order to provide balance. This request was denied.

The Vice-Inquisitor of Northern France (Jean Lemaitre) objected to the trial at its outset, and several eyewitnesses later said he was forced to cooperate after the English threatened his life. Some of the other clergy at the trial were also threatened when they refused to cooperate, including a Dominican friar named Isambart de la Pierre. These threats, and the domination of the trial by a secular government, were violations of the Church's rules and undermined the right of the Church to conduct heresy trials without secular interference.

The trial record contains statements from Joan that the eyewitnesses later said astonished the court, since she was an illiterate peasant and yet was able to evade the theological pitfalls the tribunal had set up to entrap her. The transcript's most famous exchange is an exercise in subtlety: "Asked if she knew she was in God's grace, she answered, 'If I am not, may God put me there; and if I am, may God so keep me. I should be the saddest creature in the world if I knew I were not in His grace.'" The question is a scholarly trap. Church doctrine held that no one could be certain of being in God's grace. If she had answered yes, then she would have been charged with heresy. If she had answered no, then she would have confessed her own guilt. The court notary Boisguillaume later testified that at the moment the court heard her reply, "Those who were interrogating her were stupefied."

Several members of the tribunal later testified that important portions of the transcript were falsified by being altered in her disfavor. Under Inquisitorial guidelines, Joan should have been confined in an ecclesiastical prison under the supervision of female guards (i.e., nuns). Instead, the English kept her in a secular prison guarded by their own soldiers. Bishop Cauchon denied Joan's appeals to the Council of Basel and the Pope, which should have stopped his proceeding.

The twelve articles of accusation which summarized the court's findings contradicted the court record, which had already been doctored by the judges. Under threat of immediate execution, the illiterate defendant signed an abjuration document that she did not understand. The court substituted a different abjuration in the official record.

Heresy was a capital crime only for a repeat offense; therefore, a repeat offense of "cross-dressing" was now arranged by the court, according to the eyewitnesses. Joan agreed to wear feminine clothing when she abjured, which created a problem. According to the later descriptions of some of the tribunal members, she had previously been wearing soldiers' clothing in prison. Since wearing men's hosen enabled her to fasten her hosen, boots and doublet together, this deterred rape by making it difficult for her guards to pull her clothing off. She was evidently afraid to give up this clothing even temporarily because it was likely to be confiscated by the judge and she would thereby be left without protection. A woman's dress offered no such protection. A few days after her abjuration, when she was forced to wear a dress, she told a tribunal member that "a great English lord had entered her prison and tried to take her by force." She resumed male attire either as a defense against molestation or, in the testimony of Jean Massieu, because her dress had been taken by the guards and she was left with nothing else to wear.

Her resumption of male military clothing was labeled a relapse into heresy for cross-dressing, although this would later be disputed by the inquisitor who presided over the appeals court that examined the case after the war. Medieval Catholic doctrine held that cross-dressing should be evaluated based on context, as stated in the Summa Theologica by St. Thomas Aquinas, which says that necessity would be a permissible reason for cross-dressing. This would include the use of clothing as protection against rape if the clothing would offer protection. In terms of doctrine, she had been justified in disguising herself as a pageboy during her journey through enemy territory, and she was justified in wearing armor during battle and protective clothing in camp and then in prison. The Chronique de la Pucelle states that it deterred molestation while she was camped in the field. When her soldiers' clothing was not needed while on campaign, she was said to have gone back to wearing a dress. Clergy who later testified at the posthumous appellate trial affirmed that she continued to wear male clothing in prison to deter molestation and rape.

Joan referred the court to the Poitiers inquiry when questioned on the matter. The Poitiers record no longer survives, but circumstances indicate the Poitiers clerics had approved her practice. She also kept her hair cut short through her military campaigns and while in prison. Her supporters, such as the theologian Jean Gerson, defended her hairstyle for practical reasons, as did Inquisitor Brehal later during the appellate trial. Nonetheless, at the trial in 1431 she was condemned and sentenced to die. Boyd described Joan's trial as so "unfair" that the trial transcripts were later used as evidence for canonizing her in the 20th century.

The posthumous retrial opened after the war ended. Pope Callixtus III authorized this proceeding, also known as the "nullification trial", at the request of Inquisitor-General Jean Bréhal and Joan's mother Isabelle Romée. The purpose of the trial was to investigate whether the trial of condemnation and its verdict had been handled justly and according to canon law. Investigations started with an inquest by Guillaume Bouillé, a theologian and former rector of the University of Paris (Sorbonne).

Bréhal conducted an investigation in 1452. A formal appeal followed in November 1455. The appellate process involved clergy from throughout Europe and observed standard court procedure. A panel of theologians analyzed testimony from 115 witnesses. Bréhal drew up his final summary in June 1456, which describes Joan as a martyr and implicated the late Pierre Cauchon with heresy for having convicted an innocent woman in pursuit of a secular vendetta. The technical reason for her execution had been a Biblical clothing law. The nullification trial reversed the conviction in part because the condemnation proceeding had failed to consider the doctrinal exceptions to that stricture. The appellate court declared her innocent on 7 July 1456.

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June 25, 1906 – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania millionaire Harry Thaw shoots and kills prominent architect Stanford White.

6/25/2021

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Henry Kendall Shaw

The 20th Century had quite a few "Trials for the Century," but arguably the first case to be given that sobriquet by the press was the trial (and retrial) of Henry Thaw, the son of nouveau-rich railroad magnate, for the killing of Sanford White, a blue-blood aristocrat of New York. Although Thaw was eventually found not guilty by reason of insanity and confined to a mental institution he later "escaped" (almost certainly through the intervention of his wealthy family) and was subsequent declared to be sane. Shaw was subsequently arrested for kidnapping, beating, and the sexual assault of nineteen-year-old Frederick Gump. Again acquitted by reason if insanity, Shaw was again committed to an insane asylum, but was released after six years, again through the use of his family's wealth to obtain favorable treatment. Thaw represents a prime example of how wealth can, and frequently does, frustrate efforts to assure equality before the law.

Harry Kendall Thaw (February 12, 1871 – February 22, 1947) was the son of coal and railroad baron William Thaw Sr. of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Heir to a multimillion-dollar fortune, the younger Thaw is most notable for shooting and killing the renowned architect Stanford White on June 25, 1906, on the rooftop of New York City's Madison Square Garden in front of hundreds of witnesses.

Thaw had harbored an obsessive hatred of White, believing he had blocked Thaw's access to the social elite of New York. White had also had a previous relationship with Thaw's wife, the model/chorus girl Evelyn Nesbit, when she was 16–17 years old, which had allegedly begun with White plying Nesbit with alcohol (and possibly drugs) and raping her while she was unconscious. In Thaw's mind, the relationship had "ruined" her. Thaw's trial for murder was heavily publicized in the press, to the extent that it was called the "trial of the century". After one hung jury, he was found not guilty by reason of insanity.

Plagued by mental illness throughout his life that was evident even in his childhood, Thaw spent money lavishly to fund his obsessive partying, drug addiction, abusive behavior toward those around him, and gratification of his sexual appetites. The Thaw family's wealth allowed them to buy the silence of anyone who threatened to make public the worst of Thaw's reckless behavior and licentious transgressions. However, he had several additional serious confrontations with the criminal justice system, one of which resulted in seven years' confinement in a mental institution.

Stanford White

After his expulsion from Harvard, Thaw's sphere of activity alternated between Pennsylvania and New York. In New York, he was determined to place himself amongst those privileged to occupy the summit of social prominence. His applications for membership in the city's elite men's clubs – the Metropolitan Club, the Century Club, the Knickerbocker Club, the Players' Club – were all rejected. His membership in the Union League Club of New York was summarily revoked when he rode a horse up the steps into the club's entrance way, a "behavior unbefitting a gentleman".

All these snubs, Thaw was convinced, were directly or indirectly due to the intervention of the city's social lion, lauded architect Stanford White, who would not countenance Thaw's entry into these exclusive clubs. Thaw's narcissism rebelled at such a state of affairs and ignited a virulent animosity towards White. This was the first identifiable incident in a long line of perceived indignities heaped on Thaw, who maintained the unshakable certainty that his victimization was all orchestrated by White.

A second incident furthered Thaw's paranoid obsession with White. A disgruntled showgirl whom Thaw had publicly insulted reaped revenge when she sabotaged a lavish party Thaw had planned by hijacking all the female invitees and transplanting the festivities to White's infamous Tower room at Madison Square Garden. Thaw, stubbornly ignorant of the real cause of the chain of events, once again blamed White for single-handedly destroying his revelries. Thaw's social humiliation was completed when the episode was reported in the gossip columns. Thaw was left with a stag group of guests, and a glaring absence of "doe-eyed girlies".

Evelyn Nesbit Thaw

It is conjectured that White was unaware of Thaw's long-standing vendetta against him. White considered Thaw a poseur of little consequence, categorized him as a clown, and most tellingly, called him the "Pennsylvania pug"—a reference to Thaw's baby-faced features.

On June 25, 1906, Thaw and Nesbit were stopping in New York briefly before boarding a luxury liner bound for a European holiday. Thaw had purchased tickets for himself, two of his male friends, and his wife for a new show, Mam'zelle Champagne, playing on the rooftop theatre of Madison Square Garden. In spite of the suffocating heat, which did not abate as night fell, Thaw inappropriately wore over his tuxedo a long black overcoat, which he refused to take off throughout the entire evening.

At 11:00 p.m., as the stage show was coming to a close, White appeared, taking his place at the table that was customarily reserved for him. Thaw had been agitated all evening, and abruptly bounced back and forth from his own table throughout the performance. Spotting White's arrival, Thaw tentatively approached him several times, each time withdrawing in hesitation. During the finale, "I Could Love A Million Girls", Thaw produced a pistol, and standing some two feet from his target, fired three shots at White, killing him instantly. Part of White's blood-covered face was torn away and the rest of his features were unrecognizable, blackened by gunpowder. Thaw remained standing over White's fallen body, displaying the gun aloft in the air, resoundingly proclaiming, according to witness reports, "I did it because he ruined my wife! He had it coming to him! He took advantage of the girl and then abandoned her!"(The key witness allowed that he wasn't completely sure he heard Thaw correctly – that he might have said "he ruined my life" rather than "he ruined my wife".)

The crowd initially suspected the shooting might be part of the show, as elaborate practical jokes were popular in high society at the time. Soon, however, it became apparent that White was dead. Thaw, still brandishing the gun high above his head, walked through the crowd and met Nesbit at the elevator. When she asked what he had done, Thaw purportedly replied, "It's all right, I probably saved your life."

Thaw was charged with first-degree murder and denied bail. A newspaper photo shows Thaw in The Tombs prison seated at a formal table setting, dining on a meal catered for him by Delmonico's restaurant. In the background is further evidence of the preferential treatment provided to him. Conspicuously absent is the standard issue jail cell cot; during his confinement Thaw slept in a brass bed. Exempted from wearing prisoner's garb, he was allowed to wear his own custom tailored clothes. The jail's doctor was induced to allow Thaw a daily ration of champagne and wine. In his jail cell, in the days following his arrest, it was reported that Thaw heard the heavenly voices of young girls calling to him, which he interpreted as a sign of divine approval. He was in a euphoric mood; Thaw was unshakable in his belief that the public would applaud the man who had rid the world of the menace of Stanford White.

As early as the morning following the shooting, news coverage became both chaotic and single-minded, and ground forward with unrelenting momentum. Any person, place or event, no matter how peripheral to the incident, was seized on by reporters and hyped as newsworthy copy. Facts were thin but sensationalist reportage was plentiful in this, the heyday of yellow journalism. The hard-boiled news reporters were bolstered by a contingent of counterparts, christened "Sob Sisters", whose stock-in-trade was the human interest piece, heavy on sentimental tropes and melodrama, crafted to pull on the emotions and punch them up to fever pitch. The rampant interest in the White murder and its key players were used by both the defense and prosecution to feed malleable reporters any "scoops" that would give their respective sides an advantage in the public forum. Thaw's mother, as was her custom, primed her own publicity machine through monetary pay-offs. The district attorney's office took on the services of a Pittsburgh public relations firm, McChesney and Carson, backing a print smear campaign aimed at discrediting Thaw and Nesbit. Pittsburgh newspapers displayed lurid headlines, a sample of which blared, "Woman Whose Beauty Spelled Death and Ruin". Only one week after the shooting, a nickelodeon film, Rooftop Murder, was released, rushed into production by Thomas Edison.

The main issue in the case was the question of premeditation. At the outset, the formidable District Attorney, William Travers Jerome, preferred not to take the case to trial by having Thaw declared legally insane. This was to serve a two-fold purpose. The approach would save time and money, and of equal if not greater consideration, it would avoid the unfavorable publicity that would no doubt be generated from disclosures made during testimony on the witness stand—revelations that threatened to discredit many of high social standing. Thaw's first defense attorney, Lewis Delafield, concurred with the prosecutorial position, seeing that an insanity plea was the only way to avoid a death sentence for their client. Thaw dismissed Delafield, who he was convinced wanted to "railroad [him] to Matteawan as the half-crazy tool of a dissolute woman".

Thaw's mother, however, was adamant that her son not be stigmatized by clinical insanity. She pressed for the defense to follow a compromise strategy; one of temporary insanity, or what in that era was referred to as a "brainstorm". Acutely conscious of the insanity in her side of the family, and after years of protecting her son's hidden life, she feared her son's past would be dragged out into the open, ripe for public scrutiny. Protecting the Thaw family reputation had become nothing less than a vigilant crusade for Thaw's mother. She proceeded to hire a team of doctors, at a cost of half a million dollars, to substantiate that her son's act of murder constituted a single aberrant act.

Possibly concocted by the yellow press in concert with Thaw's attorneys, the temporary insanity defense, in Thaw's case, was dramatized as a uniquely American phenomenon. Branded "dementia Americana", this catch phrase encompassed the male prerogative to revenge any woman whose sacred chastity had been violated. In essence, murder motivated by such a circumstance was the act of a man justifiably unbalanced.

Thaw was tried twice for the murder of White. Due to the unusual amount of publicity the case had received, it was ordered that the jury members be sequestered—the first time in the history of American jurisprudence that such a restriction was ordered. The trial proceedings began on January 23, 1907, and the jury went into deliberation on April 11. After forty-seven hours, the twelve jurors emerged deadlocked. Seven had voted guilty, and five voted not guilty. Thaw was outraged that the trial had not vindicated the murder, that the jurors had not recognized it as the act of a chivalrous man defending innocent womanhood. He went into fits of physical flailing and crying when he considered the very real possibility that he would be labeled a madman and imprisoned in an asylum. The second trial took place from January 1908 through February 1, 1908.

At the second trial, Thaw pleaded temporary insanity. This legal strategy was developed by Thaw's new chief defense counsel, Martin W. Littleton, whom Thaw and his mother had retained for $25,000 (equivalent to $720,000 in 2020). Thaw was found not guilty by reason of insanity, and sentenced to incarceration for life at the Matteawan State Hospital for the Criminally Insane in Fishkill, New York. His wealth allowed him to arrange accommodations for his comfort and be granted privileges not given to the general Matteawan population.

Nesbit had testified at both trials. It is conjectured that the Thaws promised her a comfortable financial future if she provided testimony at trial favorable to Thaw's case. It was a conditional agreement; if the outcome proved negative, she would receive nothing. The rumored amount of money the Thaws pledged for her cooperation ranged from $25,000 to $1 million. Throughout the prolonged court proceedings, Nesbit had received inconsistent financial support from the Thaws, made to her through their attorneys. After the close of the second trial, the Thaws virtually abandoned Nesbit, cutting off all funds. However, in an interview Nesbit's grandson, Russell Thaw, gave to the Los Angeles Times in 2005, it was his belief that Nesbit received $25,000 from the family after the end of the second trial. Nesbit and Thaw divorced in 1915.

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May 22, 1807 – A grand jury indicts former Vice President of the United States Aaron Burr on a charge of treason.

5/23/2021

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Aaron Burr

Aaron Burr was the third Vice President of the United States in the first administration of Thomas Jefferson. When it became clear that Jefferson would drop Burr from his ticket in the 1804 election, the Vice President ran for Governor of New York instead. Burr lost the election to little known Morgan Lewis, in what was the most significant margin of loss in New York's history up to that time. Burr blamed his loss on a personal smear campaign believed to have been orchestrated by his party rivals, including New York governor George Clinton. Alexander Hamilton also opposed Burr, due to his belief that Burr had entertained a Federalist secession movement in New York. In April, the Albany Register published a letter from Dr. Charles D. Cooper to Philip Schuyler, which relayed Hamilton's judgment that Burr was "a dangerous man and one who ought not to be trusted with the reins of government," and claiming to know of "a still more despicable opinion which General Hamilton has expressed of Mr. Burr". Hamilton would neither confirm nor deny the allegations which resulted in Burr challenging Hamilton to a duel. Burr killed Hamilton and as a result was charged with murder in both New York (which had no jurisdiction) and New Jersey. However, Burr was never arrested or tried in either state and completed his term as Vice President.

After Burr left the vice-presidency at the end of his term in 1805, he journeyed to the Western frontier, areas west of the Allegheny Mountains and down the Ohio River Valley eventually reaching the lands acquired in the Louisiana Purchase. Burr had leased 40,000 acres (16,000 ha) of land—known as the Bastrop Tract—along the Ouachita River, in present-day Louisiana, from the Spanish government. Starting in Pittsburgh and then proceeding to Beaver, Pennsylvania, and Wheeling, Virginia, and onward he drummed up support for his planned settlement, whose purpose and status was unclear.

His most important contact was General James Wilkinson, Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Army at New Orleans, and Governor of the Louisiana Territory. Others included Harman Blennerhassett, who offered the use of his private island for training and outfitting Burr's expedition. Wilkinson would later prove to be a bad choice.

Burr saw war with Spain as a distinct possibility. In case of a war declaration, Andrew Jackson stood ready to help Burr, who would be in a position to join in immediately. Burr's expedition of about eighty men carried modest arms for hunting, and no war materiel was ever revealed, even when Blennerhassett Island was seized by Ohio militia. The aim of his "conspiracy," he always avowed, was that if he settled there with a large group of armed "farmers" and war broke out, he would have a force with which to fight and claim land for himself, thus recouping his fortunes. However, the war did not come as Burr expected: the 1819 Adams–Onís Treaty secured Florida for the United States without a fight, and war in Texas did not occur until 1836, the year Burr died.

After a near-incident with Spanish forces at Natchitoches, Wilkinson decided he could best serve his conflicting interests by betraying Burr's plans to President Jefferson and his Spanish paymasters. Jefferson issued an order for Burr's arrest, declaring him a traitor before any indictment. Burr read this in a newspaper in the Territory of Orleans on January 10, 1807. Jefferson's warrant put Federal agents on his trail. Burr twice turned himself into Federal authorities, and both times judges found his actions legal and released him.

Jefferson's warrant, however, followed Burr, who fled toward Spanish Florida. He was intercepted at Wakefield, in Mississippi Territory (now in the state of Alabama), on February 19, 1807. He was confined to Fort Stoddert after being arrested on charges of treason.

Burr's secret correspondence with Anthony Merry and the Marquis of Casa Yrujo, the British and Spanish ministers at Washington, was eventually revealed. He had tried to secure money and to conceal his true designs, which was to help Mexico overthrow Spanish power in the Southwest. Burr intended to found a dynasty in what would have become former Mexican territory. This was a misdemeanor, based on the Neutrality Act of 1794, which Congress passed to block filibuster expeditions against U.S. neighbors, such as those of George Rogers Clark and William Blount. Jefferson, however, sought the highest charges against Burr.

In 1807, Burr was brought to trial on a charge of treason before the United States Circuit court at Richmond, Virginia. His defense lawyers included Edmund Randolph, John Wickham, Luther Martin, and Benjamin Gaines Botts. Burr had been arraigned four times for treason before a grand jury indicted him on May 22, 1807. The only physical evidence presented to the Grand Jury was Wilkinson's so-called letter from Burr, which proposed the idea of stealing land in the Louisiana Purchase. During the Jury's examination, the court discovered that the letter was written in Wilkinson's handwriting. He said he had made a copy because he had lost the original. The Grand Jury threw the letter out as evidence, and the news made a laughingstock of the General for the rest of the proceedings.

The trial, presided over by Chief Justice of the United States John Marshall, began on August 3. Article 3, Section 3 of the United States Constitution requires that treason either be admitted in open court, or proven by an overt act witnessed by two people. Since no two witnesses came forward, Burr was acquitted on September 1, despite the full force of the Jefferson administration's political influence thrown against him. Burr was immediately tried on a misdemeanor charge and was again acquitted.

Given that Jefferson was using his influence as president to obtain a conviction, the trial was a major test of the Constitution and the concept of separation of powers. Jefferson challenged the authority of the Supreme Court, specifically Chief Justice Marshall, an Adams appointee who clashed with Jefferson over John Adams' last-minute judicial appointments. Jefferson believed that Burr's treason was obvious. Burr sent a letter to Jefferson in which he stated that he could do Jefferson much harm. The case, as tried, was decided on whether Aaron Burr was present at certain events at certain times and in certain capacities. Thomas Jefferson used all of his influence to get Marshall to convict, but Marshall was not swayed.

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August 10, 1978 – Three members of the Ulrich family are killed in an accident involving a Ford Pinto, resulting in the first criminal prosecution of a US corporation for homicide - but the story is more complex than most people believe and teaches an

August 5, 1735 – Freedom of the press: New York Weekly Journal writer John Peter Zenger is acquitted of seditious libel against the royal governor of New York, on the basis that what he had published was true.

August 4, 1892 – The father and stepmother of Lizzie Borden are found murdered in their Fall River, Massachusetts home. She was tried and acquitted for the crimes a year later.

July 11, 1960 – To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is first published, in the United States.

July 10, 1925 – Scopes Trial: In Dayton, Tennessee, the so-called "Monkey Trial" begins of John T. Scopes, a young high school science teacher accused of teaching evolution in violation of the Butler Act.

July 6, 1456 – A retrial verdict acquits Joan of Arc of heresy 25 years after her death, declaring her to be a martyr.

June 25, 1906 – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania millionaire Harry Thaw shoots and kills prominent architect Stanford White.

May 22, 1807 – A grand jury indicts former Vice President of the United States Aaron Burr on a charge of treason.

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