http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scopes_Trial
Scopes Trial wrote:The leaders of Dayton, Tennessee, then a town of less than 3,000, thought that the controversy of such a trial would put Dayton on the map. They asked a 24-year-old science teacher and athletic coach named John T. Scopes, who agreed. The original prosecutors were his friends Herbert and Sue Hicks.
The jury would have been selected from a jury pool of the town's citizens. But, the case was ORCHESTRATED.
Quote:They [the defense] brought in eight "experts" on evolution, who did not testify in person but were allowed to submit evidence in the form of affidavits. . . .
Darrow suddenly asked the judge to instruct the jury to find his client guilty and closed the case for the defense.
When the lead defense attorney asks the judge to instruct the jury to find his client guilty -- the actual composition of the jury doesn't matter.
The defense team WANTED a guilty verdict.
The attorneys were simply laying the ground work necessary to challenge the law that prohibited the teaching of the evolution theory in public schools. They couldn't challenge the law in the state supreme court and obtain a final decision from the state's highest court that could be appealed to the United States Supreme Court without a conviction!
BUT HA HA! The defense strategy failed. The Tennessee Supreme Court made it impossible for the case to be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Tennessee Supreme Court set aside the conviction on a technicality. Then the Court strongly recommended that Scopes NOT be retried. (A strong recommendation or implied mandate to the chief law enforcement officer of the state.) Thus, the possible path to the U.S. Supreme Court was eliminated.
Issue avoidance! (Reminds me of our U.S. Supreme Court's recent handling of the pledge case . . . .)
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