About This Blog

 Historical Trials by Eric Fryar

Few things are more intense than a gripping courtroom drama. Brilliant lawyers arguing their case to ordinary citizens on the jury where the stakes are often life and death. Witnesses being hammered in skillful and relentless cross-examination. The purpose of this blog is to retell the stories of great historical trials so that the modern reader can get a sense of what it was like to be there when history was made. 

The trials presented here are historically significant because they involve great lawyers or famous judges, because they resulted in the development of American law, because they were "trials of the century," highly publicized trials of their day, or because they are just plain interesting. Researching these trials is challenging because up until about one hundred years ago verbatim records were not kept. "Court reporters" were literally reporters for newspapers. Nevertheless, the public, then as now, had a real hunger for stories about high-profile trials. Printers commonly published pamphlets containing a "trial record," summaries of the witness testimony and arguments of counsel. The court's charge to the jury was often published in the courts' official reports. Additionally, records often exist in state and federal archives, and newspapers often published detailed accounts of the trials.

I have gathered these materials where I could find them and reconstructed the trial using my more than 30 years' experience in the courtroom. I have tried to give the reader a sense of the time, place, and issues at stake in the various trials and insight into the strategy of the attorneys. I also review works of other authors who have written about other historical trials.