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10 Most Famous Trials in the United States

As a coin has two sides, all good or bad situations have two sides. The United States is one of the most developed countries in the world.

In addition, it’s said to be a superpower country. Its population of 329.5 million people.

All these people have different characters. Some people go against the law willingly. Others find themselves on the bad side.

For this and justice reasons, there are two types of court in the country; federal system court and state court.

Federal courts operate differently from state courts. The main cases found in federal courts are civil.

Those in state courts are criminal cases. In addition, the federal courts decide cases involving the constitution and laws passed by congress.

There are about 94 district courts, 13 circuit courts, and one Supreme Court in the United States.

There are about 1770 judges in the country. Half of these judges are appointed by the president to serve for a life term.

As per the American Bar Association (ABA), the licensed and active attorneys in the country are about 1.34 million.

The country has five divisions of prisons as per the security offered. They include minimum, low, medium, high, and super maximum-security prisons.

After conviction in trials, the jailed subjects are distributed to the necessary prisons.

Among the many trials conducted in these courts, some became attractive despite their negativity. Some are still recalled to date. The following are the most famous trial in the United States.

1. Espionage trial of the Rosenberg

This trial remains to be the only instance of Americans being jailed for espionage during the cold war. Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were tried, convicted, and executed for conspiracy.

They were accused of committing espionage by selling information about nuclear to the USSR. Their trial was credited for fueling the cold war paranoia among the Americans. The trial is freshly recalled to date.

2. Loeb and Leopold’s trial

The two killed a 14-year-old boy, Bobby Frank. They were obsessed with committing the ‘perfect crime’. The two ended up in a trial for homicide. The fame of the trial is not on the killing but from their defense attorney, Clarence Darrow.

The attorney kept the young men from getting the death penalty with a 12-hour long closing argument. After the two were jailed, Leopold was paroled at 30 years of age. Unfortunately, Loeb was killed by an inmate in the shower at the age of 30.

3. The ‘Lady Killer’ trial

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This was the first murder trial to be aired on television and radio in America. Ted Bundy was a serial killing rapist. The amazing killer claimed to enjoy being in the national spotlight as he represented himself in court.

He was tried and convicted of bludgeoning, mutilating, and strangling four sorority sisters in Tallahassee, Florida. He was sentenced to death a year later. He had tried to escape from prison twice which led to him dying on an electric chair.

Before he was executed, he had confessed to having killed 30 people. However, there were some speculations of him having killed more than 100 people. His murder trial remains to be the most-watched of all time.

4. Bill Clinton’s trial

The fame of this trial is that the defendant was a president. Bill Clinton, the 42^nd president of the United States was impeached by the House of Representatives.

This was following a sex scandal of Clinton with a White House intern, Monica Lewinsky. Later on, the Senate acquitted Clinton.

5. Manson’s Family Trial

Charles Manson led a cult-like group that murdered eight people. During the trial, the members of the group shaved their heads and sang on their way to the court. Similarly, Manson sang in the courtroom.

This was in the efforts of distracting the proceedings of the trial.

At long last, Manson and the followers were all sentenced to death which became life imprisonment. These unusual events that littered the trial made it infamous to date.

6.  The murder of pilot Lindbergh’s baby

The son of a famous pilot, Charles Lindbergh went missing. The remains of its body were found two months later. An investigation was set which run for about two years.

Despite the church-going serial killer evading capture for a long time, the investigation succeeded. They brought down the man responsible for its murder, Bruno Richard Hauptmann.

For the first time, the press used sound cameras during the criminal trial. The fame of the case grew from the press that was surrounding the case which was never seen before. The coverage of the case was extraordinary.

7. The Menendez brother’s trial.

The two biological brothers, Lyle and Erik, were convicted for killing their parents. The public thought that they killed them to inherit their properties.

However, during the trial, the two claim that the parents had been abusing them for a reasonable long period.

This claim cemented the fame of the case. They are serving life in prison with minimal chances of parole.

8. Scott Peterson’s trial

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His wife had recently died. He had an affair with another woman whom he told that his wife was deceased. His unusual behavior following his wife’s disappearance raised eyebrows among the public.

The public scrutinized his conduct which led to his trial in the court of public opinion. A jury in charge convicted him of killing his wife and their unborn child.

Unfortunately, even with his innocence, he is currently serving life imprisonment.

9. John Wayne Gacy’s Trial

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He is well known as the serial killer clown extracted from his ‘work’ dress code. His murder records of the known people were thirty-three young men in Cook County in Illinois. He was burying the majority of them under his house.

The fame of his trial is from the crimes he had committed and the fact that he had confessed to the police before the trial began. There still exist arguments for the mental stability of John, as some people think he is insane.

The court found him guilty after convicting him. He ultimately received 12 death sentences and 21 natural life sentences.

10. J. Simpson’s trial

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This is well recalled as the trial of the century. O. J. Simpson was a former actor, celebrity pitchman, and football Hall of Famer. His trial proceedings were being followed by an estimate of ninety-five million people.

He was convicted for killing his ex-wife, Nicole Brown, and her friend Ron Goldman. Their bodies were found outside Nicole’s condominium in the tony Brentwood neighborhood in Los Angeles. The victims’ throats had been slashed off.

Simpson spent millions in his defense.  However, he was acquitted of murder nine months later. The public’s fascination with the case has persisted since then to date.

There are several books, movies, and TV series based on this trial. An example is the award-winning TV series, ‘the people vs. O. J. Simpson’.

The above are the most famous trials of the United States. A good number of them are murder cases with a few other kinds like the impeachment of President Bill Clinton.

Despite the trials being famous, the conviction of defendants was against. In actual fact, they all ended up in jail. Some had minimal chances of parole.

The cases do reveal the chances stood by the American public. These have the power to take down a criminal to trial and demand justice.