Maybe, but then the title of the thread should be changed.
Whatever. My arms are tired and my voice is hoarse, so I’ll give up on trying to explain the difference between a case and a trial.
The OP is not a lawyer. Not even on tv.
The appelation “Trial of the Century” gets thrown around quite a bit. Now I come to find out that I don’t even know what a trial is!
In any case, (pun intneded) I would guess that anything that gets to the supreme court, is much ‘bigger’ than say the trial of a murderer.
Mostly I posed the question for the lawyer types and the Eve types to offer opinions (hence the forum choice).
So case or trial. Just give your opinion and why.
(Sigh) All this talk about appellate decisions and briefs and stipulations and depositions and affidavits … I’m so bored.
When Zebra said “Trial of the Century,” I thought he meant trials that had reporters rushing out of courtrooms, photographers jockeying for position and Americans listening, spellbound, to every word of breathless commentary. Now, THAT’S a Trial of the Century. And while the Minister and the Choir Girl murder case and the OJ Simpson case and a few others meet that criteria, so does Scopes, PLUS it’s socially significant (in the same way the Dred Scott case was socially significant.)
Roe v Wade was definitely a history-making SCOTUS decision, but I just don’t see fedora-wearing photographers lugging Graphlexes around.
Now, if you want to rank the history-making legal cases of the 20th century, well, my personal bias is Times v Sullivan.
Here’s why the Nuremberg Trials. They were a world forum. They affected international law. The other cases mentioned had national, or regional interest, but not international.
Well, as someone interested in the history surrounding these cases, and their place in the broader sweep on American intellectual, political, and cultural history, my primary concern is not whether they are “celebrated” in the sense you seem to be implying here. Nor am i especially concerned about whether the trial itself was “pretty tame.”
The issues raised in the Scopes trial were central to American intellectual history, raising questions that had dogged American thinkers, especially since the rise of evolutionary theory, the growth of secularism, and the battle between science and religion in the late nineteenth century. And it doesn’t take much of a look around to see that these questions and debates are still incredibly relevant in the United States today. I’m perfectly happy to have people disagree with my choice, but i personally think the Scopes trial is a decent candidate.
If we’re talking “trial of the century” for the US only, then I’m not going to venture a guess. If we’re talking “trial of the century” world-wide, then the only example that has been presented (and the one that gets my vote) is the Nuremberg Trials - the first time that I know of where government officials were tried by an international court for war crimes and/or human rights violations, setting the precedent for the current International Criminal Court ( http://www.icc-cpi.int ).
Agreed.
AHEM
Assuming you used “jurist” to mean “lawyer”, at least one of them has weighed in. And, he happens to be brilliant, sexy, witty, and yes ladies, he’s also single.
Too many to pick one, we could make a top-ten list.
I was, as you indicate, using jurist in the more general sense of a person who has a professional interest in the law, and m’pologies for unintentionally excluding thou and many others who are not specifically listed. The appelate decisions listed have had a far more lasting impact than overpublicized trials about domestic murders and a minor kidnapping case.
With regard to spoke-'s issue (that many of the decisions mentioned are not trials) I agree in the technical sense, but I find the claim of “Trial of the Century” toward a media circus to be bombastic and overblown. Twenty years from now, people will be saying, “O.J. who?” just as Sam Sheppard is already known as a footnote as (incorrectly) the inspiration for the t.v. show The Fugitive.
mhendo, I agree that the central issue of Scopes (intellectual freedom in education) was an important one, but Scopes was intentionally rigged, and the outcome was certain from the start. John Scopes was (it astonishes many to know) found guilty, and rightly so, as he was clearly in violation of The Butler Act. (Campion will no doubt proudly note that jury nullification did not occur in this case.) The defense won on appeal based not upon their primary legal theories but on a minor technicality regarding the amount of the fine.
I was thinking previously strictlyl in terms of American legal actions but I have to agree with those who point to the Nuremberg Trials on a world stage as being the most important of the XXth Century. Holding national leaders accountable for actions that were beyond the pale (in terms of intentionally harming or eradicating civilian populations) was a major step. Of course, as General Curtis LeMay observed, had the Allies lost the war, he and his strategic bombing planners would have likely been held equally accountable war crimes.
Stranger
If trial of the century refers precisely to the common “Law & Order” type trial, then I’d say the Scopes trial would win. Both because it generated a huge amount of media interest, and had a “media circus” around it and because it had more serious affects on society as a whole.
I would probably guess that the O.J. trial was surrounded by more of a circus (I think it would be hard to compare the two, given the differences in technology) but did not have a serious impact on society.
What’s interesting is legally both trials really had no impact at all.
Most important != trial of the century, necessarily.
Of the true courtroom “events” we’ve had Scopes is probably the biggest in the traditional jury/judge/etc type trial. Scopes is in textbooks to this day, and it happened almost 100 years ago, so I don’t think it will leave our consciousness for some time.
The O.J. trial will still be remembered more than twenty years from now, just as the Lindbergh trial and Leopold & Loeb is remembered.
Possibly, by people like you and I who are interested in these things. And probably even more so in USA. But to expect the mention of the Leopold and Loeb trial to even have a smattering of understanding is I believe a stretch of the imagination. Now.
Now that an attorney has said it, I’ll weigh in with the Baby M surrogacy trial. It was wagered in my own back yard and I followed it closely.