WITH JUSTICE FOR SOME. Lise Pearlman

2.DEMENTIA AMERICANA

       A Dramatic Murder Brings the Curtain Crashing Down on the Gilded Age

       New York City, New York – 1906

      Drug-addicted millionaire Harry Thaw is at first lauded by defenders of traditional womanhood for the revenge killing of Gilded Age premiere architect Stanford White for having deflowered Thaw’s wife, Evelyn Nesbit, when she was a teenage Broadway chorus girl – the “It” girl of her era before that term was coined. Thaw’s lawyer uses the defense of Dementia Americana – temporary insanity compelling a man to defend the honor of his wife or daughter. Soon, revelations of Thaw’s own debauchery fuel working class anger at the extraordinary privileges and hypocrisy of the ruling elite.

       3.UNDESIRABLE CITIZENS

       Two Lethal Bombings Focus Americans on Labor Wars

       Caldwell, Idaho – 1906; Los Angeles, California – 1910

      A hired assassin blows up retired Democratic Governor Frank Steunenberg. Clarence Darrow gains national prominence defending militant mineworkers’ union leader Big Bill Haywood, the champion of the 8-hour day. President Roosevelt uses his bully pulpit to weigh in against “undesirable citizens” as immigrants across the country rally to Haywood’s defense. Four years later, the bombing of the Los Angeles Times building again pits owners against labor unions as Darrow returns to defend the McNamara brothers from execution, in a case that both severely damaged the labor movement and lost Darrow his California license.

       4.SHOWDOWN WITH THE SUPREME COURT

       The Lynching That Gave Teeth to the Fourteenth Amendment Right to a Fair Trial

       Chattanooga, Tennessee – 1906–1909

      A sheriff up for reelection frames African-American Ed Johnson for the brutal rape of a blonde 21-year-old. The record leads the U.S. Supreme Court to issue its first grant of review of a state criminal trial for fairness only to have its review thwarted when the sheriff allows Johnson to be lynched. The high court then oversees its one and only contempt trial. Its opinions in this case gave rise to 100 years of federalism. Today, the Supreme Court has been accused of turning back the clock to render review of the fairness of state court trials once again “toothless.”

       5.MURDER BEGETS MURDER

       Two Tragic Deaths in Atlanta Launch the Modern KKK and the Anti-Defamation League

       Atlanta, Georgia – 1913–1915

      The murder of thirteen-year-old factory worker Mary Phagan is exploited by the Hearst papers trying to gain a foothold in the Atlanta news market. Hearst belatedly tries to dampen anti-Semitic rage against the accused Jewish factory manager Leo Frank. After Governor Slaton commutes his sentence, Frank is lynched by white supremacists roused by political kingmaker Thomas Watson to avenge Phagan’s death as a symbol of the antebellum South. The Knights of Mary Phagan launch the modern KKK and Frank’s supporters create the Anti-Defamation League.

       6.THE FIX WAS IN

       The Fall Guys for the Gamblers Who Rigged the 1919 World Series

       Chicago, Illinois – 1921

      The biggest sports scandal for eighty years occurred in an era of rank hypocrisy -- when society’s leaders championed lofty ideals as they ignored blatant double standards in the courts and on the playing field. In order to restore faith in the “squareness and honesty” of baseball, its first commissioner dramatically banned eight players for life for throwing the 1919 World Series, while whitewashing the role of others to avoid creating “suspicion of all things” in the hearts and minds of myriad fans.

       7.A LEGAL LYNCHING OF SACCO AND VANZETTI

       Biased Judicial System Gives American Justice an International Black Eye

       South Braintree, Massachusetts – 1920

      The death penalty trial of two radical Italian emigres for a robbery-murder in a factory payroll heist draws international criticism. During trial, the two anarchists sit caged before a biased judge instructing the jury to do their duty. Judge Webster Thayer makes it known he believes Sacco and Vanzetti deserve execution for dodging the wartime draft whether or not they were guilty of robbery. The denial of a fair trial to immigrants by the only superpower to emerge from World War I draws worldwide protests, spawns judicial reforms in the U.S. and galvanizes coalitions opposing WASP monopoly power in America.

       8.TEENAGE SOCIOPATHS

       Life or Death for Leopold and Loeb?

       Chicago, Illinois – 1924

      Two high IQ sons of wealthy Jewish families commit murder to prove they are Nietzschean supermen. The nation learns about Freudian psychiatry and criminal responsibility as Darrow seeks to save the privileged pair from execution -– an age-based exemption not accepted by the U.S. Supreme Court until many decades later.

       9.THE DARK SIDE OF THE SCOPES TRIAL

       White Supremacists on Both Sides Embrace Genocidal Acts

       Dayton, Tennessee – 1925

      Social Darwinists take sides against Fundamentalists and the KKK. Clarence Darrow debates perennial presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan in a test case challenging a new state law barring the teaching of evolution in a widely used textbook by a eugenicist advocating sterilization of inferior human stock.

       10.A BLACK MAN’S CASTLE

       The Sweet Murder Trials Launch the NAACP Legal Defense Fund as the KKK Collapses

       Detroit, Michigan – 1925–1926

      The KKK was at its peak of influence when the NAACP recruited Clarence Darrow to defend a black doctor, his friends and family from murder charges. The confrontation that resulted in a spectator being killed had started when a KKK-sponsored association stoned Dr. Sweet’s home in a mostly white, working class neighborhood. Darrow’s favorite closing argument details the history of oppression faced by blacks in America