Celebrated legal battles become so for a reason: they establish or overturn critical legal precedents, their verdicts affect an important arena of public or private life, or trial participants are well-known. Such trials provide windows through which to consider the larger political, social and cultural context in which they take place. The cases examined closely by the class through required texts, discussions, lectures, films and student presentations address a range of issues, including race and gender discrimination, civil disobedience, the separation of church and state, obscenity and censorship, treason, war crimes, sexual assault, reproductive rights, the nature of citizenship, corporate liability, and capital punishment. By analyzing trials that raise these issues we can consider changes and continuities over the last century in how our justice system finds legal remedies for conflicts, crimes, and inequities.
