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.