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Full-Text Articles in Legal History
The Massie (Honor Killing) Trials 1931-32, Douglas O. Linder
The Massie (Honor Killing) Trials 1931-32, Douglas O. Linder
Faculty Works
Two dramatic criminal trials, one for rape and one for murder and both involving multiple defendants, forever changed the nature of Hawaiian race relations and politics. Filled with twists and turns and unanswered questions, the trials have all the elements of a good mystery. The second of the so-called Massie Affair trials also closes out the courtroom career of America's greatest defense attorney, Clarence Darrow. No trials ever had a more significant effect on a state's history than those that shocked and shook Hawaii in 1931 and 1932.
The Dr. Sam Sheppard Trial, Douglas O. Linder
The Dr. Sam Sheppard Trial, Douglas O. Linder
Faculty Works
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 the murder and described his own battle with the killer he described as bushy-haired. Did Sam do it? It's rare for a murder mystery to endure for over half a century. Almost always, if the mystery is not fully resolved at the trial, subsequent admissions, previously uncovered clues, or more sophisticated forensic tests reveal what the trial did not. Not …
The Leopold And Loeb Trial: A Brief Account, Douglas O. Linder
The Leopold And Loeb Trial: A Brief Account, Douglas O. Linder
Faculty Works
Few trial transcripts are as likely to bring tears to the eyes as that of the 1924 murder trial of Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold. Decades after Clarence Darrow delivered his twelve-hour long plea to save his young clients' lives, his moving summation stands as the most eloquent attack on the death penalty ever delivered in an American courtroom. Mixing poetry and prose, science and emotion, a world-weary cynicism and a dedication to his cause, hatred of bloodlust and love of man, Darrow takes his audience on an oratorical ride that would be unimaginable in a criminal trial today. Even …
The Trial Of Lizzie Borden, Douglas O. Linder
The Trial Of Lizzie Borden, Douglas O. Linder
Faculty Works
"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 the poem is a testament to the public's fascination with the 1893 murder trial of Lizzie Borden. The source of that fascination might lie in the almost unimaginably brutal nature of the crime - given the sex, background, and age of the defendant - or in the jury's acquittal of Lizzie in the face of prosecution evidence that …
The Sad, Sad Story Of Lula Viers, Richard H. Underwood, Sharon Ray
The Sad, Sad Story Of Lula Viers, Richard H. Underwood, Sharon Ray
Law Faculty Scholarly Articles
In this article, Professor Richard H. Underwood explores the murder ballad entitled Lula Viers. Lula Viers was from the Appalachia region of Kentucky.