Famous Trials

With all the hoopla surrounding the Michael Jackson trial, I got to thinking about other famous trials throughout history. I found one site that is very interesting, and it covers trials from thousands of years ago right up to current ones that everyone had heard of. So get out your legal books and get ready to go before the bar.

The site is called Famous Trials, and is a website that is maintained by Douglas Linder. He is a professor of law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, where he teaches constitutional and communications law, among other legal subjects. Here he has created a site that looks at trials that are historic in nature, and cover a wide period of time. The first one he looks at is the trial of Socrates from 399 B.C., and the most recent is the impeachment trial of President Clinton. In between he looks at court trials of the Salem Witchcraft, Oscar Wilde, Leopold & Loeb, Sacco & Vanzetti, the Scottsboro Boy, Alger Hiss, the Rosenbergs, and many, many others.

What makes the trials sites so interesting that they are presented in a logical order, in easy to understand layman's terms. All trial pages follow the same format, so if your interest is looking at trial documents, they are in the same section for each trail. The information is presented chronologically, so you find out what happened both before and after the trial. There are also special sections that focus on specific topics. For example, there is a section on Clarrence Darrow, who defended many famous and infamous people in the early 20th century, including John Scopes in the famous "Monkey Trial". Especially interesting also is the section on Constitutional Law. It is interesting how many rights that we assume are constitutional ones really are not, and vice versa.

The variety of trials that are covered here is truly unique. They are all interesting, and each, in their own way, are a piece of the history of our country. That is both our chronological history, and our legal history.

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/ftrials.htm

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