Scopes Trial Alternate Assignment

Name______Period______

The Scopes Trial, formally known as The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes and commonly referred to as the Scopes Monkey Trial, was a famous American legal case in 1925 in which a high school teacher, John Scopes, was accused of violating Tennessee's Butler Act, which made it unlawful to teach evolution in any state-funded school. Scopes was unsure whether he had ever actually taught evolution, but he purposefully incriminated himself so that the case could have a defendant.

The trial served its purpose of drawing intense national publicity, as national reporters flocked to Dayton to cover the big-name lawyers who had agreed to represent each side. William Jennings Bryan, three-time presidential candidate for the Democrats, argued for the prosecution, while Clarence Darrow, the famed ACLU defense attorney, spoke for Scopes. The trial set modernists, who said evolution was consistent with religion, against fundamentalists who said the word of God as revealed in the Bible took priority over all human knowledge. The case was thus seen as both a theological contest and a trial on modern science regarding the creation-evolution controversy.

The ACLU had originally intended to oppose the Butler Act on the grounds that it violated the teacher's individual rights and academic freedom, and was therefore unconstitutional. But Clarence Darrow changed that stragtegy as the trial progressed. The earliest argument proposed by the defense was that there was actually no conflict between evolution and the creation account in the Bible. By the later stages of the trial, Clarence Darrow had largely abandoned the ACLU's original strategy, attacked the literal interpretation of the Bible as well as Bryan's limited knowledge of other religions and science.

On the seventh day of the trial, Clarence Darrow took the unorthodox step of calling William Jennings Bryan, counsel for the prosecution, to the stand as a witness in an effort to demonstrate that belief in the historical accuracy of the Bible and its many accounts of miracles was unreasonable. Bryan accepted, on the understanding that Darrow would in turn submit to questioning by Bryan. Darrow never took the stand. On the stand, Bryan chastised evolution for teaching children that humans were but one of (precisely) 35,000 types of mammals and bemoaned the notion that human beings were descended "Not even from American monkeys, but from old world monkeys". However, Darrow schooled Bryan on many parts of the Bible that Bryan could not explain. The trial became more about Darrow versus Bryan.

After eight days of trial, it took the jury only nine minutes to deliberate. Scopes was found guilty on July 21 and ordered to pay a $100 fine. However, the conviation was later overturned on a technaclity.

Answer Questions on the back

1. What was John Scopes charged with? 2. Explain why the trial served it purpose? 3. Who were the main attorneys in the trial? 4. What was the trial seen as? 5. What was the ACLU’s original strategy? 6. How did Darrow change that strategy? 7. What unorthodox step did Darriow take in the trial? 8. What did Bryan say on the stand? 9. How did Darrow counter Bryan’s statements? 10. What was the result of the trial?