TRIALS, DECISIONS OFFER HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

Putting together lists of the top trials and Supreme Court decisions of the 20th century had to be a major undertaking for Stephen N. Limbaugh and his son, Stephen N. Limbaugh Jr.

The Limbaughs, who are from Cape Girardeau, performed a valuable service in doing so, for the list will serve as a record of important judicial events of the century.

The elder Limbaugh, who is a senior U.S. district court judge in St. Louis, compiled the list of 50 famous trials by reading trial history and remembering some of them. His son, a Missouri Supreme Court judge, put together the list of 50 Supreme Court decisions.

The list was presented to the Missouri Bar and Judicial Conference in Kansas City recently, and attendees chose what they considered to be the top trials and high-court decisions of the 1900s. Voting will be extended through the end of the year so that all lawyers in the state will get a chance to vote. Ballots are to be published in the bimonthly newsletter to 24,000 licensed Missouri attorneys, and voting also will be conducted on the Missouri Bar Association's Web page.

Those who attended the conference picked the Scopes Trial the top trial of the 1900s. Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education was chosen the top U.S. Supreme Court decision. Not surprisingly, both cases tested key issues and had unprecedented effects on education in the United States.

The crux of the 1925 trial was John Thomas Scopes' attempt to teach evolution in the Dayton, Tenn., school district. Teaching evolution violated the state's Butler Act, which made it unlawful to teach any theory that denied the Bible's story of creation. Scopes was found guilty, and the trial stirred national religious fervor over conservatism and the theory of evolution. That controversy rages on today, as demonstrated by the Kansas State Board of Education's recent decision on the teaching of evolution.

The younger Limbaugh said the list of Supreme Court cases was dominated by cases from the past 40 years, and the most important litigation centered on race relations. Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education struck down an 1896 case of Plessy vs. Ferguson stating separate but equal did not apply to education. The court ruled that U.S. schools must desegregate immediately.

The younger Limbaugh said the court has ruled on substantive due process in most of the top cases, further defining rights during criminal procedures, such as the Miranda Rights, and the right to privacy, such as a woman's right to abortion, as delineated in the Bill of Rights.

The list of other trials and Supreme Court decisions touch on other issues that marked the century, and some of which will be carried on into the new millennium. They provide an instant review of history most of us have witnessed at one time or another during this century.