On Wednesday, May 16, 2007 13:53, Joseph Riggs wrote: > Doesn't sound that difficult to arrange. Has any civil > rights group arranged a "prosecution" in order to push it up > the court system? It seems to me that the DMCA is > practically begging for something along those lines, similar > to the way the Scopes trial was brought into being.
(*ahem*) It appears that an Inconvenient Truth is in order here. Although Clarence Darrow made a fool out of William Jennings Bryant, arguing circles around him, the scientific validity of evolution wasn't upheld and John Thomas Scopes was convicted of teaching it in violation of Tennessee state law, specifically the 13 March 1925 Butler Act. After eight days of trial, it took the jury only nine minutes to deliberate. Scopes was found guilty on 21 July 1925 and ordered to pay a US$100.00 fine. Upon review, the Tennessee Supreme Court found the statute to be constitutional, but set aside the conviction on appeal due to a legal technicality: the jury should have decided the fine, not the judge, as Tennessee judges could not at that time set fines above 50 dollars. The prosecution did not seek a retrial. Not until 1968 did the U.S. Supreme Court rule in Epperson v. Arkansas 393 U.S. 97 (1968) that such bans contravene the Establishment Clause because their primary purpose is religious. Tennessee had repealed the Butler Act the previous year. -Z- -------------------------------------------------- The Gundam Mailing List MK-II [email protected] Archives: http://www.gundam.com/gml Help: Email [EMAIL PROTECTED] with this in the BODY: help list
