Legal History

Lawyer Pays $21.3M for Magna Carta

A lawyer has paid $21.3 million at auction for a 710-year-old copy of the Magna Carta. David Rubenstein, a lawyer and founder of The Carlyle Group, a private equities firm, told reporters he bought the document so it can remain on display at the National Archives, Reuters reports. The Magna…

Dec 19, 2007 4:19 PM CST

Judge Sentences Priest to Say Psalms

Echoing a sentence famously given to a world-renowned scientist by the Catholic Church in a heresy case centuries ago, a Chilean judge has ordered a priest who says he can’t afford either to park his car legally or to pay a $100 parking fine to say seven psalms daily for…

Dec 12, 2007 11:14 PM CST

December 5, 1933

Prohibition Repealed

Dec 1, 2007 8:50 PM CST

Black Sox Trial Docs on Auction Block

A box containing trial documents, letters and memos related to the 1919 White Sox World Series scandal is set to be sold this week in the Chicago area. Collectors happened upon the documents, though details about their origins remains unclear, according to the Chicago Tribune. Among the collection are thousands…

Nov 26, 2007 6:05 PM CST

O.J. Will Go to Trial in Armed Robbery Case

Unlike O.J. Simpson’s murder trial in the mid-1990s, it presumably won’t be billed as the trial of the century or become famous for related sideshow features such as a troupe of televised look-alike black-robed dancing trial “judges.” But the armed robbery case against the former football hero for an alleged…

Nov 15, 2007 1:15 AM CST

Ginsburg: If Male, I’d Be a Retired Partner

It wasn’t only former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor who, famously, had trouble finding work as a lawyer after graduating at the top of her class from a renowned law school back in the day when law practice was almost exclusively a male domain. Her female colleague on the U.S. Supreme…

Nov 12, 2007 10:59 PM CST

Death Detective Extraordinaire Aids South Florida Researchers

Those who need details about a little-known death long ago in or around Miami, Florida, may be some of the luckiest information-seekers in the country. A local volunteer has compiled an extraordinary 4,000-page record of virtually all deaths listed in the local newspapers for more than a century. And, as…

Nov 12, 2007 6:25 PM CST

Pakistan Fires Top Court, Lawyers Protest There and Elsewhere

The protesters wore conservative business suits today as thousands of lawyers throughout Pakistan clashed with authorities over the suspension of the constitution and the firing of the country’s chief judge, along with numerous other supreme court and appellate judges. Many of the 17 supreme court judges, including fired Chief Judge…

Nov 5, 2007 10:07 PM CST

November 20, 1945

Nuremberg War Crimes Trial Begins

Nov 1, 2007 5:26 PM CDT

Noose Use Up Nationwide Since Jena March

Displaying a hangman’s noose has become an increasingly common practice throughout the country since a civil rights march in Jena, La., last month over a racially charged schoolyard attack that reportedly occurred after a noose was hung in a tree near the tiny town’s high school. Since then, nooses have…

Oct 30, 2007 7:10 PM CDT

Jezebel on a Broomstick & Salem Witch Judge

When Eve LaPlante, a Boston area writer, starts thinking about a possible book topic, she doesn’t have to go far from home. In the last several years she has written two books about family forbears, American Jezebel: The Uncommon Life of Anne Hutchinson, the Woman Who Defied the Puritans and…

Oct 29, 2007 11:02 PM CDT

It’s Official: UK Law Firms Soon For Sale

Long-anticipated legislation allowing nonattorneys to own United Kingdom law firms passed its final hurdle in the British Parliament today. The Legal Services Bill will soon be signed by Queen Elizabeth II, in the first step toward a legal market for buying and selling UK law firms that should be operational…

Oct 25, 2007 8:49 PM CDT

Downfall: Why Did Bruce Hyman Do It?

A British lawyer who seemingly had it all, Bruce Hyman was also a wonderful guy. So friends were stunned when he became the first barrister in the bar’s 800-year history jailed for professional misconduct. A wealthy well-known radio and television producer from a professional family, Hyman, now 49, came to…

Oct 16, 2007 9:10 PM CDT

Vatican Publishes Medieval Trial Docs

Documents from controversial trials 700 years ago that still fascinate many today are to be published by the Vatican later this month in a limited, leather-bound edition of 799 numbered copies. It features reproductions of handwritten parchment minutes of trials between 1307 and 1312 of members of the Knights Templar,…

Oct 12, 2007 5:31 PM CDT

October 20, 1973

The ‘Saturday Night Massacre’

Oct 1, 2007 6:12 PM CDT