‘Trials Of The Century’
These cases are among those dubbed “Trials of the Century” by the media, according to research by Gerald Uelmen, former dean of Santa Clara University Law School and one of O.J. Simpson’s lawyers:
1901 - Leon Czolgosz was convicted in Buffalo, N.Y., of assassinating President William McKinley and was executed.
1904 - Millionaire playboy Harry Thaw was tried twice in New York for the murder of his wife’s former lover. Testimony about a naked showgirl on a red velvet swing kept the public’s attention on the case. The first trial ended in a hung jury; he was found not guilty in the second by reason of insanity.
1918 - Eugene Debs was convicted in Chicago of World War I sedition but later was pardoned.
1921 - Keystone Kops film actor Fatty Arbuckle was tried three times in San Francisco on charges of rape and murder of a party guest. The first two trials ended in hung juries; he was acquitted in the third.
1925 - High school science teacher John Thomas Scopes was convicted in Dayton, Tenn., of teaching evolution. Lawyers Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan sparred over whether mankind is related to monkeys, leading to the nickname “Scopes Monkey Trial.” The verdict later was reversed.
1927 - Albert Fall, a Cabinet member, and oil magnate Edward Doheny were tried in the Teapot Dome oil scandal in Washington, D.C. Both were acquitted in the first trial of conspiring to defraud the government. In a second trial, Fall was convicted of accepting a bribe from Doheny. Doheny was acquitted.
1935 - Bruno Hauptmann was convicted in Flemington, N.J., in the kidnap and murder of the baby son of Charles Lindbergh, the hero who had made the first solo trans-Atlantic flight. Hauptmann maintained his innocence until he was executed.
1936 - Charles “Lucky” Luciano, boss of the crime syndicate dubbed “Murder Inc.,” was convicted in New York of prostitution conspiracy charges. Forty prostitutes and madams testified, but Luciano’s help with Sicilian authorities during World War II led to his early parole.
1944 - Charlie Chaplin lost a paternity suit in Los Angeles.
1946 - Twenty-four former Nazi war leaders faced war crimes charges in Nuremberg, Germany. Twelve were sentenced to death, three to life in prison and four to lesser prison terms. Three were acquitted. One committed suicide before the trial, and another was declared mentally unfit for trial.
1949 - Former State Department official Alger Hiss was tried twice in New York on perjury charges for denying he knew confessed Soviet agent Whittaker Chambers, an editor of Time. The first trial ended in a hung jury; he was convicted in the second.
1951 - Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, owners of a New York machine shop, were turned in by a relative who said he had helped them pass U.S. nuclear secrets to the Soviets. The Rosenbergs cited the Fifth Amendment when asked whether they were Communist Party members, but they were convicted of espionage and executed.
1964 - Jack Ruby was convicted in Dallas of shooting to death Lee Harvey Oswald after Oswald had been charged with President John F. Kennedy’s murder. The conviction was reversed, but Ruby was tried again and convicted.
1969 - Sirhan Sirhan, a Jordanian incensed by presidential candidate Robert Kennedy’s support of Israel, was convicted in Los Angeles of assassinating Kennedy after he had won the California primary.
1970 - The Chicago Seven, anti-Vietnam War protesters who had disrupted the Democratic National Convention, were convicted in Chicago of conspiracy charges in one of the most chaotic trials in history. Abbie Hoffman, in his opening statement, said, “I am an orphan of America. … I live in Woodstock Nation.” The conviction was reversed.
1971 - Charles Manson and followers were convicted in Los Angeles of a murder spree that included pregnant movie actress Sharon Tate among the victims. Seven deaths eventually were connected to members of the Manson “family,” who explained their motive by smearing the words “Helter Skelter” on the walls with blood.
1972 - Charges against Daniel Ellsberg, an employee of the Rand Corp., for releasing the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times and Washington Post eventually were dismissed in Los Angeles.
1973 - Five burglars and two campaign officials for Richard Nixon were convicted in the Watergate conspiracy in Washington, D.C. Trials in 1974 and 1975 resulted in the conviction of several former Nixon administration and Nixon campaign officials.
1976 - Patty Hearst, a wealthy college student at Berkeley, was convicted of turning into a gun-wielding bank robber after her kidnapping by the Symbionese Liberation Army. She later was pardoned.
1984 - Sports car manufacturer John DeLorean was acquitted on charges of drug conspiracy in Los Angeles.
1987 - Electrical engineer Bernhard Goetz was acquitted of the most serious charges after shooting two of four black youths who had approached him in a New York subway car. He was convicted only of criminal possession of a gun.
1993 - The Menendez brothers’ trial in Los Angeles for killing their parents resulted in a hung jury. A retrial is beginning.
1995 - O.J. Simpson is on trial in Los Angeles, charged with murdering his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and one of her friends, Ronald Goldman.
Sources - Gerald Uelmen, Encyclopaedia Britannica, World Book