Information about famous court cases

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Best bet

Famous trials, UMKC School of Law.
In-depth information on selected famous or infamous cases, from Socrates to the present.

Oyez, Cornell’s Legal Information Institute, Justia, and Chicago-Kent College of Law.
"A multimedia archive devoted to making the Supreme Court of the United States accessible to everyone." Oyez includes: transcripts, audio recordings, plain text summaries of cases, full text opinions, bios on justices, and a virtual tour of the Supreme Court Building. 

Web sources

American Museum of Tort Law online tours, American Museum of Tort Law.
The American Museum of Tort Law website highlights some of the most famous and precedent-setting tort law cases in US history.

Arrest and trial of Lizzie Borden: Topics in chronicling America, Library of Congress.

The case of Sacco & Vanzetti, Mass. Supreme Judicial Court.

Historic Supreme Court decisions by party name, Cornell Legal Information Institute.

Massachusetts Constitution and the abolition of slavery, Mass. Supreme Judicial Court.
"During the years 1781 to 1783, in three related cases known today as 'the Quock Walker case,' the Supreme Judicial Court applied the principle of judicial review to abolish slavery. "

Salem witch trials documentary archive and transcription project, The University of Virginia.

Trial of Jane Toppan for the murder of Mary D. Gibbs, State Library of Massachusetts.
Transcript of the 1902 trial of Jane Toppan, a convicted murderer who confessed to killing over 31 people (12 confirmed).

Print sources

America on trial: inside the legal battles that transformed our nation, by Alan Dershowitz, Warner Books, 2004.

Great American court cases, Gale Group, 4 v., 1999.

Great American trials, Gale Group, 2002.

Law makers, law breakers, and uncommon trials, by Robert Aitken, American Bar Association, 2007.

The Sacco-Vanzetti affair: America on trial, by Moshik Temkin, Yale University Press, 2009.

A storm of witchcraft: the Salem trials and the American experience, by Emerson Baker, Oxford University Press, 2015.

The trial of Lizzie Borden: a true story, by Cara Robertson, Simon and Schuster, 2019.

Last updated:	January 19, 2023