Annenberg Foundation
Annenberg Learner: Democracy in America: The Courts: Our Rule of Law
This unit provides a comprehensive look into the value of the U.S. court system as a means to maintain the safety of American citizens. Offers video, readings, web resources, and activities.
iCivics
I Civics: Trial Court Simulation
Learners learn the vocabulary and process of small claims court and have the chance to play plaintiff, defendant, judge, and jury in this simulation. The lesson is complete with witness statements, evidence, a trial script, and jury...
Other
Model Supreme Court Courtroom Protocol and Procedures
Sample courtroom protocol and procedures from the YMCA Youth & Government website.
Read Works
Read Works: A Courtroom in the Classroom
[Free Registration/Login Required] A literary text about a teacher named Miss Blake who decided to teach her students about court by creating a courtroom role-play. A question sheet is available to help students build skills in reading...
Other
Streetlaw: Introduction to Law and the Legal System
This website, a unit introducing the law and legal system, is organized into six chapters where you can learn about laws, lawmaking, citizen advocacy, dispute settlements, the court system, and lawyers.
University of Missouri
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...
University of Missouri
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...
University of Missouri
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...
University of Missouri
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!'"...
University of Missouri
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...
University of Missouri
Famous Trials: George Zimmerman ("Trayvon Martin") Trial (2013)
Trayvon Martin was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Walking back from a 7-Eleven to the Sanford, Florida townhouse of his father's fiancee on a dark and rainy February evening in 2012, Martin aroused the suspicions of neighborhood...
University of Missouri
Famous Trials: Lizzie Borden Trial (1893)
"Lizzie Borden took an axe, And gave her mother forty whacks, When she saw what she had done, She gave her father forty-one." Actually,the Bordens received only 29 whacks, not the 81 suggested by the famous ditty, but the popularity of...
University of Missouri
Famous Trials: Lenny Bruce Trial (1964)
"What does it mean to be found obscene in New York? This is the most sophisticated city in the country....If anyone is the first person to be found obscene in New York, he must feel utterly depraved." --Lenny Bruce, after his conviction...
University of Missouri
Famous Trials: Matthew Shepard Murder (Mc Kinney and Henderson) Trials (1999)
This article focuses on the murder of Matthew Shepard. Matthew Shepard was gay. Tied to the fence as we was, the sheriff allowed that it did look a bit like a crucifixion. With little more than that, a consensus quickly emerged that...
University of Missouri
Famous Trials: Lapd (King Beating) Trials (1992 1993)
It seemed like an open-and-shut case. The George Holliday video, played on television so often that an executive at CNN called it "wallpaper," showed three Los Angeles police officers--as their supervisor watched-- kicking, stomping on,...
University of Missouri
Famous Trials: Mutiny on the Bounty Court Martial (1792)
The true story of the the 1789 mutiny on the Bounty is far more complicated than suggested by film versions of the event, which have emphasized the gratuitous cruelty of the ship's captain, William Bligh. The psychological drama that...
University of Missouri
Famous Trials: West Memphis Three Trials (1994)
On a warm sunny May day three eight-year-old boys set off on a bike ride around their hometown of West Memphis, Arkansas. The next afternoon, their bruised and mutilated hog-tied naked bodies were pulled from a stream, setting off an...
University of Missouri
Famous Trials: The Trial of Joan of Arc (1431)
The story of Joan of Arc, the peasant girl whose religious visions altered the history of France, has been told often. And like so many stories in history, things do not end well for Joan. On May 30, 1431, after a lengthy and highly...
University of Missouri
Famous Trials: Anthony Burns (Fugitive Slave) Trial of 1854
The extradition of Anthony Burns as a fugitive slave was the most memorable case of the kind that has occurred since the adoption of the Federal Constitution. It was memorable for the place and for the time of its occurrence; the place...
University of Missouri
Famous Trials: Sheriff Shipp Trial (1907 09)
"I am ready to die. But I never done it. I am going to tell the truth. I am not guilty. I have said all the time that I did not do it, and it is true. I was not there. I know I am going to die and I have no fear to die and I have no fear...
University of Missouri
Famous Trials: Sam Sheppard Trials (1954 & '66)
On July 4, 1954, Marilyn Sheppard, the wife of a handsome thirty-year-old doctor, Sam Sheppard, was brutally murdered in the bedroom of their home in Bay Village, Ohio, on the shore of Lake Erie. Sam Sheppard denied any involvement in...
University of Missouri
Famous Trials: Ruby Ridge (Weaver) Trial (1993)
In the 1980s, the mountainous panhandle of northern Idaho became a magnet for right-wingers of all stripes. Government-haters, minority-haters, immigrant-haters, and modern culture-haters all found refuge in the sparsely-populated...
University of Missouri
Famous Trials: Trial of the Nazi Saboteurs (1942)
The eight Germans who landed on beaches were all graduates of a training school for saboteurs. The idea for a sabotage effort in America developed in late 1941, soon after a German spy network in the United States imploded when one of...
University of Missouri
Famous Trials: The Osage "Reign of Terror" Murder Trials
The "Reign of Terror" that overtook the Osage Reservation in 1921 is just one chapter in the long story of mistreatment of Native Americans by whites, but is one of the most horrifying. Before the chapter ends, untold dozens of Osage...