America on Trial Inside the Legal Battles That Transformed Our Nation

by Dershowitz, Alan M.

• ISBN13: 9780446694735
• ISBN10: 0446694738
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-05-19
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Summary

Great trials not only make great headlines, but also hold the keys to the passions and struggles of their times. In this fascinating and provocative work, Alan M. Dershowitz offers startling views of many of the most significant (and still controversial) cases in America's history-contrasting the Salem witch trials with the communist-hunting trials of the McCarthy era, the impeachments of Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton, and civil Rights cases from the Dred Scott decision to Brown v. Board of Education. Dershowitz also re-examines some of the high-profile cases in which he himself participated, including the Pentagon Papers case, the trials of the Chicago Seven, Claus von Bulow, O.J. Simpson, Mike Myson, and the political minefield of Bush v. Gore.

Author Biography

Alan M. Dershowitz, the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard University, is a litigator, columnist, lecturer, and book reviewer

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	xi
Introduction	xiii
Prologue: The Foundations of American Law	1	(26)
Part I: Colonial America	27	(36)
The Salem Witchcraft Trials	35	(9)
The Trial of John Peter Zenger	44	(5)
The Slave Revolt Trial	49	(5)
The Boston Massacre Trials	54	(9)
Part II: The Early History of the United States	63	(20)
The Trials of Aliens and Seditioners	68	(7)
The Trial of Aaron Burr	75	(8)
Part III: From Jacksonian Democracy to the Pre--Civil War Period	83	(26)
The Boorn-Colvin Murder Mystery	88	(5)
The Richard Lawrence Case	93	(8)
The Harvard Medical School Murder	101	(8)
Part IV: The Prelude to the Civil War	109	(22)
The Dred Scott Case	117	(7)
The John Brown Case	124	(7)
Part V: The Civil War	131	(30)
The Savannah Case	139	(7)
The Trial of Captain Henry Wirz	146	(6)
The Trial of the Lincoln Assassins	152	(9)
Part VI: The Post--Civil War Period	161	(34)
The Trial of Andrew Johnson	170	(4)
The Trial of Susan B. Anthony	174	(4)
The Trial of Mary Todd Lincoln	178	(5)
The Trial of the Assassin Guiteau	183	(4)
The Trial of Lizzie Borden	187	(8)
Part VII: The Early Twentieth Century	195	(50)
The Trial of Stanford White's Killer	203	(5)
The Great Labor Union Trials	208	(10)
The Trial of Leo Frank	218	(9)
The Abrams Case	227	(6)
The Shoeless Joe Jackson Case	233	(12)
Part VIII: The Roaring Twenties and the Depression Thirties	245	(38)
The Trial of Sacco and Vanzetti	251	(5)
The Trial of Leopold and Loeb	256	(6)
The Scopes Trial	262	(6)
The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell	268	(4)
The Lindbergh Kidnapping Trial	272	(4)
The Scottsboro Trials	276	(7)
Part IX: World War II	283	(22)
The Nuremberg Trial	290	(7)
The Ezra Pound Case	297	(8)
Part X: The Cold War and McCarthyism	305	(32)
The Alger Hiss Case	313	(6)
The Trial of the Rosenbergs	319	(10)
The Remington Case	329	(8)
Part XI: The Civil Rights Movement	337	(38)
The Brown Case	346	(10)
The Prosecution of Martin Luther King Jr.	356	(5)
The Case of Clarence Earl Gideon	361	(8)
The Trial of Jack Ruby	369	(6)
Part XII: The Vietnam War Era and Its Aftermath	375	(70)
The Trial of Dr. Spock	382	(8)
The Trial of the Chicago Seven	390	(5)
The Court-Martial of Lieutenant William L. Calley Jr.	395	(5)
The Pentagon Papers Case	400	(5)
Roe v. Wade	405	(7)
The American Indian Movement Trials	412	(7)
The Bakke Case	419	(9)
The Trial of Richard Herrin	428	(6)
The Trial of Jeffrey MacDonald	434	(11)
Part XIII: The 1980s and 1990s	445	(92)
The Trial of Jean Harris for the Scarsdale Diet Doctor Murder	452	(6)
The Attempted Assassination of President Reagan by John Hinckley Jr.	458	(4)
The Trials and Appeal of Claus von Bulow	462	(8)
The John DeLorean Trial	470	(7)
Flynt v. Falwell	477	(5)
The Bernhard Goetz Case	482	(4)
The McMartin Case	486	(4)
The Central Park Jogger Case	490	(3)
The Trial of Mike Tyson	493	(14)
The Two Trials for the Beating of Rodney King	507	(7)
The O. J. Simpson Trial	514	(8)
The Clinton Impeachment Trial	522	(15)
Part XIV: The New Millennium and the Future	537	(32)
Bush v. Gore	541	(10)
The Texas Sodomy Trial and Appeal	551	(8)
The Cases of the Terrorist Detainees --- in Guantanamo, on the U.S. Mainland, and in Unknown Places Around the World	559	(10)
Index	569