• printer friendly
• mail this article
• iPod format
• digg

Tuesday, May 28, 1996

Political and social ills lead to dramatic cases in every era

Quick! Here's a test: Who's the first person you think of when I say "the trial of the century"? If you're like most Americans, your answer was probably "O.J. Simpson," which is not surprising given the extent to which his case captivated the national consciousness.

But was O.J's really the trial of the century ­ the biggest, the baddest, the granddaddyest of them all? I kind of doubt it. After all, history tells us that there have been many so-called "trials of the century." Sacco and Vanzetti, Bruno Hauptmann, Alger Hiss and Ethel and Julius Rosenberg are just a few examples that come immediately to mind.

Which begs the question: What makes trials like these so historically memorable? Is it the heinousness of the crimes committed? The celebrity of the parties involved? Certainly these must be factors, but the most salient criteria, I think, is the extent to which a particular trial manifests the most ubiquitous and intractable social and political problems of the day.

Take Sacco and Vanzetti, for instance. Amid the intense anti-immigrant sentiment of the 1920s, these two Italian anarchists were arrested for a double murder that occurred in connection with a payroll holdup in South Braintree, Mass. Though the evidence used against them in court was not conclusive, the jury found both men guilty as charged.

The presiding judge, who made no effort to conceal his bias against the defendants during the trial, quickly sentenced the two men to death. Despite the fact that millions of Americans believed they did not receive a fair trial, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomea Vanzetti died in the electric chair Aug. 23, 1927.

Five years later, in March 1932, Bruno Hauptmann was arrested for the kidnapping and murder of Charles and Anne Murrow Lindbergh's 20-month-old son. By the time the trial began in January 1935, it had attracted such intense media attention that journalist and social critic H.L. Mencken called it "the biggest story since the Resurrection."

As historian Paula Fass describes it, the tiny courthouse in Flemington, NJ "became a society venue. Richly dressed and sophisticated women and well-tailored men vied for seats in court. The small town became an inexhaustible source of entertainment, and the man accused of the heinous crime ... became the center of a media circus, with endless possibilities for news stories."

Though there were no witnesses to the crime, the jury found the defendant guilty, and on Jan. 13, 1936, Bruno Hauptmann met his death in the electric chair.

Twenty-two years later, amid the escalating popular fears and anxieties concerning domestic communism, Whittaker Chambers, a senior editor from Time Magazine and an admitted former Communist, appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee and accused Alger Hiss and several other federal officials as having once been members of a communist cell in Washington D.C. The accusations shocked a nation already entangled in the politics of the Cold War and set the stage for what was to become, in the words of one reporter, "one of the most sensational criminal trials of modern times."

At the age of 45, Alger Hiss had a brilliant past and a seemingly even brighter future. A graduate of Harvard Law School and former clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Hiss held several key positions in the New Deal administration, attended the historic Yalta conference, helped organize the 1945 United Nations conference in San Francisco and when accused, was president of the Carnegie Institute for International Peace in New York City.

Before Hiss had time to publicly deny the charges before the House Un-American Activities Committee and deny ever having known a man by the name of Whittaker Chambers, the story was banner headline news in all the nation's major papers. To allow the public the opportunity to decide for itself whose story to believe, the two men met Aug. 5, 1948 in what was perhaps the most highly celebrated hearing of the 20th century. Microphones, klieg lights, newsreel and television cameras were all on hand to capture every word, gesture and detail of the first major American congressional hearing ever to be televised.

In May 1949, the trial of Alger Hiss began. As a transfixed nation looked on, Whittaker Chambers took the witness stand and confessed to many sins ­ immorality, lying and attempted betrayal of his country ­ but never did he admit to the charge that his allegations were false. Legal history was even made when two U.S. Supreme Court Justices ­ Justice Felix Frankfurter and Justice Stanley Reed, friends of Hiss' since his Harvard days ­ appeared as character witnesses on his behalf.

In July 1949, the trial ended with a deadlocked jury: 8-4 in favor of conviction. The second trial began in November 1949 and ended two months later with a new jury finding Hiss guilty of perjury (the statute of limitations on espionage had expired).

In the summer of 1950, before Hiss was sent to prison, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were arrested for allegedly passing atomic secrets to the Soviets. Tried under the glare of intense media attention, the jury found the defendants guilty as charged. Calling theirs "a crime worse than murder," the trial judge sentenced the defendants to death. On July 19, 1953, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg died in the electric chair, leaving behind two young sons and a legacy of unanswered questions.

As the nation's social and political landscape began to change, so too did the nature of our most highly celebrated trials. Out of the turbulence of the '60s came the trial of the Chicago Seven; amid the avarice of the '80s arose the case of billionaire junk bond king Michael Milken; and out of the racial discord of the '90s came (yes, you guessed it) the trial of Orenthal James Simpson.

Of course, all this is not to say that O.J's was not the trial of the century, for history may indeed judge his case to be just that. But until it does, it might be more accurate to refer to it as "the trial of the '90s" or maybe even "the trial of the era." But "the trial of the century"? Like I said, I kind of doubt it.

Evans is a 1989 UCLA alumna and a graduate student in history at UC Berkeley, and works in the UCLA history department this quarter. This is her last column.