Scottsboro

When Thaw, the wayward son of a Pennsylvania industrialist, shot prominent architect Stanford White before dozens of theatergoers dining on the rooftop terrace of Madison Square Garden,. the subsequent trial became one of the most publicized events of the time.

It had everything a made-for-the-tabloids affair could hope for: sex, money, jealousy, gambling, abuse, even a chorus girl and a red velvet swing.

By all accounts, it was the Trial of the Century. Of course, the year was 1907, and the century had only begun. It would be nearly two decades before John T. Scopes would stand trial for teaching Darwinism, almost 30 years before Bruno Hauptmann would be tried for the kidnapping and murder of the infant son of Charles Lindbergh, and the better part of a century before O.J. Simpson would grimace as he struggled to pull on a glove in a Los Angeles courtroom.

For the past 99 years, hardly a decade has passed without at least one high-profile case being promoted as the Trial of the Century. Yet while the issues and accusations of those trials varied, what made them

Standard Oil and Microsoft both were subjected to trials challenging their efforts to control their markets. The courts were to determine whether their founders were robber barons or merely captains of industry. While the two cases differ in terms of the type of product and extent of control, the foundations for resolving these issues--the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 and other federal antitrust regulations--were very much the same.

The mob was held at bay, but the series of trials that followed the 1931 arrests initially resulted in death sentences for all but one of the defendants. Although the sentences were later reduced after a series of new trials and appeals, it was 1937 before the trials finally ended.

Some topics in this essay:
Simpson Satellite, Trial Century, Political Trials, East Coast, Scottsboro Ala, Rodney King, Rights Act, Guiberson History, Sherman Act, Bill Clinton's, justice system, standard oil, civil rights, school law, trial century, bruno hauptmann, scottsboro boys, rodney king, murder trial, advances science technology, john scopes, university school law, civil rights movement, trial bruno hauptmann,