10/30/2005

Famous Trials Website

"My vision was to create the Web’s largest collection of primary documents, images, essays, and other materials relating to famous trials from Salem to Simpson. Trials have long struck me as wonderful vehicles for exploring history and human nature. What better way to understand the 20s than reading about the Scopes, Sacco-Vanzetti, and Leopold and Loeb trials? What provides better insights into the nature of evil than reading the transcripts of the William Calley court-martial or the Nuremberg trials? Would not the Amistad, Shipp, Scottsboro Boys, Sweet, and “Mississippi Burning” trials provide an excellent launching point for a discussion of racism in America? I wanted these materials to be made readily available, in an easily digestible form, for everyone from junior high students to law professors."

So states Professor Douglas Linder of the University of Missouri - Kansas City School of Law about his Famous Trials Website. In my view, he has succeeded very well and the site is worth visiting for its fascinating and easily read subject matter -- famous trials from Socrates to Bill Clinton