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Famous Trials: The Oj Simpson Trial
This well-researched site offers a comprehensive study of the 1995 criminal trial of OJ Simpson. Includes not only the law and politics involved in the trial, but also the role of the media and the mass public attention placed upon the...
University of Missouri
Famous Trials: Famous Trials: Al Capone Trial (1931)
Al Capone was Public Enemy No. 1, who managed to evade prosecution for his many crimes. Read this lengthy and interesting account of his eventual trial, see pictures of people involved, find a chronology of Capone's exploits, and read...
University of Missouri
Famous Trials: Illinois v. Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb
Discover everything you would want to know about the Leopold & Loeb trial. This comprehensive tool provides an abundance of information including the evidence, the confession, the crime scene, the summations, the decision, photos,...
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Famous Trials: An Account of the Leonard Peltier Trial
Read an account of th events that led to the arrest of Leonard Peltier for the murder of two FBI agents. Did he receive a fair trial? Find a wealth of information related to this controversial trial.
University of Missouri
Famous Trials
This site looks at famous trials in American history. Trials that shaped American society and changed America's laws.
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Famous Trials: Animal Rights on Trial
Animal Rights on Trial (2013-2020). In this case, a petition filed by the Nonhuman Rights Project on behalf of Tommy, a chimpanzee living out his old age ten miles away in what the document described horribly. The Nonhuman Rights Project...
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Famous Trials: Andersonville Prison (Henry Wirz) Trial (1865)
This module discusses the trial of Henry Wirz, the Confederate commander who was in charge of Camp Sumter, otherwise known as Andersonville, were Union prisoners of war died at an alarming rate.
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Famous Trials: Hitler ("Beer Hall Putsch") Trial
The Adolf Hitler ("Beer Hall Putsch") Trial (1924)
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Famous Trials: Chamberlain "Dingo" Trial (1982)
"The scientist shouldn't become too adventurous, too competitive. The trouble is, we're all so human. I've never seen a case more governed by human frailties." --Dr. Tony Jones, government pathologist in the Chamberlain trial.
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Famous Trials: Celia, a Slave Trial (1855)
For nineteen-year-old Celia, a slave on a Missouri farm, five years of being repeatedly raped by her middle-aged owner was enough. On the night of June 23, 1855, she would later tell a reporter, "the Devil got into me" and Celia fatally...
University of Missouri
Famous Trials: Carthage (Joseph Smith Murder) Trial (1845)
One of the most consequential crimes in American history occurred on a summer day in 1844 when a mob stormed a jail in Carthage, Illinois and murdered Joseph Smith and his brother, Hyrum. The killing of Joseph Smith, the charismatic...
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Famous Trials: Bernhard Goetz Trial (1987)
The Saturday afternoon before Christmas in 1984, on a New York City subway car making its run downtown, two black teenagers approached Bernhard Goetz. One of the teens said to the slightly built blond man, "Give me five dollars." Seconds...
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Famous Trials: Brown v Topeka Board of Ed. (1951)
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka is widely known as the Supreme Court decision that declared segregated schools to be "inherently unequal." The story behind the case, including that of the 1951 trial in a Kansas courtroom, is much...
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Famous Trials: Anders Breivik (Norway Massacre) Trial
Anders Breivik (Norway Massacre) Trial (2012)is discussed and analyzed on this module.
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Famous Trials: Dan White Trial (1979)
Dan White wanted his job back. Days after resigning his position as one of San Francisco's eleven supervisors, he had second thoughts, and asked Mayor George Moscone to reappoint him. When he learned the Mayor would not honor his...
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Famous Trials: D. C. Stephenson Trial (1925)
In 1925, the Indiana KKK was the largest state branch in the Klan's "Invisible Empire." The conviction in November of that year of D. C. Stephenson, the powerful grand dragon of the Indiana Klan, for the murder of Madge Oberholtzer led...
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Famous Trials: Confidential Magazine Trial (1957)
Thomas Wolfe called Confidential (1952-58) "the most scandalous scandal magazine in the history of the world." Confidential went where no publication had gone before in exposing to the public the private lives of celebrities. Truth,...
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Famous Trials: Famous Medieval Trials (897 1386)
The year is 897, and Pope Stephen VI has ordered the eight-month-old corpse of his predecessor removed from its vault at St. Peter's. The former, and very dead, pope is clad in his old pontifical vestments, placed on a throne in a Roman...
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Famous Trials: Mc Martin Preschool Abuse Trial (1987 90)
"They're putting on witnesses who they know are lying. They concealed exonerating evidence. Don't we have enough criminal conduct by the prosecutors to put them behind bars?" "It doesn't work that way," the lawyer laughed. "The law is...
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Famous Trials: The Trials of Mary Dyer (1659 & 1660)
Mary Dyer was on a spiritual quest to Boston, to Portsmouth, to Newport, and to the northwest coast of England, where she became an ardent member of a new religion - a Quaker, or a member of the Society of Friends. Determined to spread...
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Famous Trials: Falwell v Flynt Trial (1984)
Asked about his first sexual experience by an interviewer, Reverend Jerry Falwell said, "I never really expected to make it with Mom, but then after she showed all the other guys in town such a good time, I thought 'What the hell!'"...
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Famous Trials: Enron (Lay & Skilling) Trial (2006)
In 2000, Enron was the darling of Wall Street, the largest seller of natural gas in North America, the fifth largest corporation in the United States, and the nation's "most innovative" large company (according to Fortune magazine). By...
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Famous Trials: The Dreyfus Affair Trials
This article details The Court Marial of Alfred Dreyfus. The document pieced together that September day in Paris, called "the bordereau," would launch a criminal process that would divide and convulse France for decades. The events set...
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Famous Trials: The Dred Scott Trials: An Account
This article an account of the many Dred Scott Trials (1846-1854)in an attempt to be freed from slavery.