93 Fun Facts About Law

Who sets the number of justices on the US Supreme Court, which the Constitution leaves open?

Congress: it started the Court at six seats in 1789, settled on nine in 1869, and in 1937 refused Franklin Roosevelt's plan to add up to six more.

Which 1803 case established the US Supreme Court's power of judicial review?

Marbury v. Madison: John Marshall held that William Marbury was owed his commission but that the law letting the Court order it delivered was unconstitutional, so the Court gained judicial review by refusing a power.

Who was the first Chief Justice of the United States, nominated by George Washington in 1789?

John Jay took the post two days after the Judiciary Act created the Court, resigned in 1795 to become governor of New York, and turned the job down when it was offered again in 1800.

Who became the first woman to serve on the US Supreme Court in 1981?

Sandra Day O'Connor was confirmed 99-0; three decades earlier she had won her first legal job, as a deputy county attorney, only by offering to work without pay or an office.

Which NAACP lawyer won 29 of his 32 Supreme Court cases?

Thurgood Marshall: an early win forced the University of Maryland's law school, which segregation had kept him out of, to admit a Black student.

Which 1896 'separate but equal' decision did the Supreme Court's 1954 school desegregation ruling partially overrule?

Plessy v. Ferguson upheld segregated rail cars after Homer Plessy, who was seven-eighths white, deliberately sat in a whites-only carriage so a citizens' committee could test the law.

What was the vote in the 1966 Supreme Court ruling requiring police to tell suspects of their right to silence?

Miranda v. Arizona was decided 5-4 in 1966, with Chief Justice Earl Warren writing the majority opinion requiring the warnings.

How did Clarence Gideon write the Supreme Court petition that won poor defendants a free lawyer?

In pencil on jail stationery, Clarence Earl Gideon petitioned the Supreme Court; Gideon v. Wainwright (1963) was unanimous, and a jury acquitted him at his retrial.

Roe vs. Wade (1973) rooted abortion rights in which constitutional right?

Privacy: the 7-2 majority found the right in the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause; 'Jane Roe', Norma McCorvey, had already given birth long before the ruling came.

Which 2022 case overruled Roe v. Wade?

The decision returned abortion regulation to the states after 49 years.

The Latin phrase habeas corpus, the name of the writ against unlawful imprisonment, literally means what?

'You shall have the body' is the literal sense of habeas corpus; the Habeas Corpus Act 1679 codified the writ, and Lincoln suspended it in 1861.

What does the 27th Amendment, ratified in 1992 more than 200 years after it was proposed, regulate?

Congressional pay: the 1789 proposal lay forgotten until a Texas student argued in a 1982 term paper that it could still pass, got a C, and campaigned until it was ratified.

Which Founding Father is popularly called the 'Father of the Constitution'?

James Madison drafted the Virginia Plan, kept the fullest notes of the 1787 Convention, and later served two terms as president from 1809.

The Twenty-first Amendment of 1933 is unique in US history for what reason?

It repealed an earlier one, the Eighteenth, ending Prohibition; it is also the only amendment ratified by state conventions, chosen to bypass legislatures thought to be in fear of the temperance lobby.

Which is the only US state whose private law is based on civil law rather than English common law?

Louisiana's civil code descends from the civil law of its colonial rulers, so its lawyers start from a written code where other states start from past rulings.

Which of these countries has a legal system based on English common law?

India kept the common law after British rule ended, while Egypt and Iraq, both once under British control too, have mixed systems built on civil-law codes.

Which English king, the foe of Thomas Becket, sent out travelling royal judges and so founded the common law?

Henry II sent royal justices round the country on circuit, and the rulings they shared, in place of local custom, grew into a law common to the whole of England.

Which English king was forced by rebel barons to seal Magna Carta at Runnymede?

John sealed it in June 1215 to buy peace with his barons, then appealed to the Pope, who annulled it within weeks, and civil war followed.

Which institution holds two of the four surviving 1215 originals of Magna Carta?

The British Library has two; the others belong to Salisbury and Lincoln cathedrals, and Lincoln's spent part of the Second World War locked in Fort Knox.

The basalt stele carved with Hammurabi's law code is displayed in which museum?

The Louvre: a French expedition dug the stele up in 1901 at Susa in Iran, where it had been carried off as plunder some 600 years after it was carved.

The 'eye for an eye' principle found in the Code of Hammurabi is known by what Latin name?

Lex talionis, the law of retaliation, is the 'eye for an eye' principle; Hammurabi's penalties also varied with the victim's social class.

Which law code did a commission of ten men draw up for Rome around 450 BC?

The Twelve Tables: plebeians pushed for written law because unwritten custom had been interpreted only by upper-class priests, and the tablets were posted in public for all to read.

Socrates was tried in Athens in 399 BC on charges of impiety and what else?

Corrupting the youth: asked to propose his own penalty, Socrates, in Plato's telling, suggested free meals for life at public expense, and the jury of some 500 Athenians chose death.

None of those condemned in the Salem witch trials were burned at the stake; how were nineteen executed?

By hanging: fourteen women and five men went to the gallows in 1692, while Giles Corey, who refused to enter a plea, was pressed to death under heavy stones.

The 1925 Scopes 'Monkey Trial' pitted Clarence Darrow for the defence against which famous prosecutor?

William Jennings Bryan, a three-time presidential nominee, joined the prosecution, let Darrow call him to the stand as a Bible expert, and died in his sleep five days after the trial ended.

Which lawyer told the O. J. Simpson jury 'If it doesn't fit, you must acquit'?

Johnnie Cochran delivered the line in closing; Simpson was acquitted on 3 October 1995, and a civil jury found him liable in February 1997.

In which German city did the Palace of Justice host the trial of leading Nazis in 1945-46?

Nuremberg: its courthouse had survived the bombing largely intact with a prison attached, and the city of the Nazi party rallies made a pointed setting.

The UN's International Court of Justice sits in which building?

The Peace Palace in The Hague, paid for by steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, opened in 1913, a year before the First World War; the court is the only principal UN organ not based in New York.

The 15 judges of the International Court of Justice are elected by the UN General Assembly and which other body?

The Security Council: a candidate needs a majority in both bodies voting separately, which is how Britain lost its seat in 2017 for the first time since the court began.

What was the traditional number of jurors in England?

Twelve jurors has been the English norm since the Middle Ages; Scotland uses larger criminal juries, and Williams v. Florida (1970) let US states use six.

In US federal courts, which body of 16 to 23 citizens decides whether to indict a suspect?

A grand jury meets in private and hears the prosecutor's side, which is why lawyers joke that one would 'indict a ham sandwich'.

Which branch of the legal profession in England and Wales specialises in courtroom advocacy?

Barristers must obey the 'cab-rank rule': like a taxi at the head of the queue, they have to take the next case in their field, however unpopular the client.

The statue of Lady Justice on the dome of London's Old Bailey is unusual because she lacks what?

A blindfold: the gilded bronze figure holds her sword and scales with eyes uncovered, as the earliest images of Justice did; the blindfold appeared only around 1500, seemingly as a jibe at courts blind to abuses.

What do the scales carried by Lady Justice represent?

Weighing the evidence of both sides: the image is far older than Rome's Justitia, going back to Egypt, where a dead person's heart was weighed against the feather of the goddess Maat.

The Old Bailey, London's Central Criminal Court, was built on the site of which notorious prison?

Newgate Prison, where crowds gathered for public executions in the street outside until 1868, was pulled down, and stones from it went into the facade of the court that opened on the site in 1907.

Who holds attorney-client privilege and may waive it?

The person represented, the client, owns the privilege, so a lawyer cannot waive it for them; it falls away, though, when the advice was sought to further a crime or fraud.

Which 1919 law defined 'intoxicating liquor' and enforced Prohibition across the United States?

The Volstead Act set the limit at 0.5 per cent alcohol, was vetoed by President Wilson, and became law within a day when the veto was overridden.

The US Supreme Court agrees to hear a case by granting which writ?

Certiorari: a minority is enough, since four of the nine justices can grant it, yet only a small fraction of the petitions filed each year are ever heard.

US Supreme Court justices hold office 'during good behavior', which in practice means what?

Life tenure: a justice leaves only by death, retirement, resignation or impeachment, and the one justice ever impeached, Samuel Chase in 1804, was acquitted by the Senate.

In which city was the US Constitution signed in 1787?

Philadelphia: the delegates met in secret through the summer of 1787, in the same room where the Declaration of Independence had been signed eleven years earlier.

Under Roman law as recorded in Justinian's Digest, on whom does the burden of proof lie?

On him who asserts, not on him who denies: the Digest credits the maxim to the jurist Paulus, and it is still the starting rule of evidence in courts today.

The oldest surviving law code, the Code of Ur-Nammu from about 2100 BC, comes from which ancient region?

Mesopotamia: the Sumerian code, about three centuries older than Hammurabi's, mostly fines offenders in silver where the later law demanded an eye for an eye.

In which book did Baron de Montesquieu advocate a separation of powers?

The Spirit of the Laws, published anonymously in 1748 and put on the Catholic Church's Index of banned books three years later, argued for separate legislative, executive and judicial powers.

In Nix v. Hedden, the US Supreme Court ruled which botanical fruit a vegetable for tariff purposes?

The tomato counted as a vegetable, the justices held unanimously, because people ate it with the main course and not as dessert. Imported vegetables were taxed in 1893, while fruit came in free.

Which McDonald's item gave Stella Liebeck, 79, the third-degree burns behind a famous lawsuit?

Coffee held at 180 to 190 degrees Fahrenheit left Liebeck needing skin grafts and eight days in hospital. She had first asked McDonald's for just $20,000 to cover her medical bills.

Which drinks brand did John Leonard sue for refusing him a Harrier jet for 7 million reward points?

Pepsi had shown the military jet as a prize in a tongue-in-cheek TV advert. A judge ruled that no reasonable person could have taken the offer seriously.

Which sport is played on the 'Highest Court in the Land', a gym in the US Supreme Court building?

Basketball is played on the fifth floor, in a former storage area converted in the 1940s. A sign by the door bans games while the justices are in session.

Naruto, a macaque who took a selfie on a photographer's camera, lost a US lawsuit over which right?

Copyright can be held only by humans, an appeals court ruled in 2018 after PETA sued on the animal's behalf. The US Copyright Office refuses to register works that lack a human author.

Chicago gangster Al Capone was finally sent to prison in 1931 after being convicted of which crime?

Tax evasion earned Capone an eleven-year sentence, part of it served on Alcatraz. Prosecutors relied on a ruling that even illegally earned income is subject to income tax.

Which animal was put on trial and hanged at Falaise in Normandy in 1386 for killing a child?

A pig was the usual defendant in medieval France's animal trials, because pigs roamed freely among people. In 1379 the Duke of Burgundy pardoned two whole herds accused as accomplices.

Warner/Chappell lost its claim to licensing fees for which song when a US judge ruled against it in 2015?

"Happy Birthday to You" took its tune from "Good Morning to All", written by two Kentucky sisters for a kindergarten class. Warner/Chappell agreed to pay back $14 million in fees.

Which staple of American courtroom dramas have judges in British courts never actually used?

The gavel has never been used by judges in the United Kingdom, Ireland or the wider Commonwealth. It still turns up in TV programmes there that copy American shows.

Which Supreme Court case named the police warning that begins 'You have the right to remain silent'?

Miranda v. Arizona did not free Ernesto Miranda: retried without his confession, he was convicted again. He later made a modest living autographing police officers' warning cards.

Which fictional Alabama lawyer defends Tom Robinson in Harper Lee's novel To Kill a Mockingbird?

Atticus Finch was based on Harper Lee's own father, Amasa Coleman Lee, who also represented Black defendants in a highly publicised trial. The American Film Institute voted Finch cinema's greatest hero.

Which law school does Elle Woods attend in the Reese Witherspoon comedy Legally Blonde?

Harvard is where Elle follows her ex-boyfriend, but the story began on the other coast. Author Amanda Brown based the novel on her own time as a fashion-obsessed student at Stanford Law School.

Which Joe Pesci comedy about an Alabama murder trial do lawyers praise for its accurate procedure?

My Cousin Vinny was directed by Jonathan Lynn, who holds a law degree from Cambridge. Marisa Tomei won an Academy Award as Vinny's fiancée, Mona Lisa Vito.

Which former Mississippi lawyer wrote the legal thrillers The Pelican Brief and The Client?

John Grisham practised criminal law for about a decade before his first bestseller, The Firm, sold more than seven million copies. He also sat in the Mississippi House of Representatives.

Which legal clerk, played by Julia Roberts, helped win $333 million from Pacific Gas & Electric?

Erin Brockovich traced unexplained illnesses in Hinkley, California, to chromium in the drinking water. The 1996 payout was the largest of its kind in American history at the time.

Which future president used an almanac at an 1858 murder trial to discredit a moonlight eyewitness?

Abraham Lincoln took the case without a fee because the accused, Duff Armstrong, was the son of old friends. The jury acquitted Armstrong after a single ballot.

Which future US president defended the British soldiers tried for murder after the Boston Massacre?

John Adams took the unpopular case to make sure the soldiers had a fair trial, despite the risk to his reputation. Six were acquitted, and two were branded on the thumb for manslaughter.

Which future president opened a Johannesburg law firm with fellow activist Oliver Tambo in 1952?

Nelson Mandela and Tambo worked from two small rooms in Chancellor House, the Johannesburg building that also housed the African National Congress. It reopened as a museum in 2011.

Which Indian leader studied law at London's Inner Temple, then spent 21 years in South Africa?

Mahatma Gandhi failed to build a law practice in India, so in 1893 he sailed to act for a merchant in a single lawsuit. As a student he was so shy that he joined a public-speaking group.

Which astronomer did the Roman Inquisition try in 1633 and confine to house arrest for life?

Galileo Galilei was found "vehemently suspect of heresy" for holding that the Earth moves and the Sun stands still. He served the sentence at his villa at Arcetri, near Florence.

Which French heroine was convicted of heresy at Rouen in 1431, a verdict nullified 25 years later?

Joan of Arc was tried by a pro-English Church court and burned at the stake. Three notaries wrote up the proceedings each day, and a second trial in 1456 threw the verdict out.

Bill Clinton was impeached in 1998 on charges of obstruction of justice and which other offence?

Perjury before a grand jury was the charge: the House accused Clinton of lying under oath about Monica Lewinsky. The Senate acquitted him on both counts, neither reaching the two-thirds vote needed.

Which is the only crime the US Constitution defines, requiring two witnesses to the same overt act?

Treason is limited to levying war against the United States or giving aid and comfort to its enemies. Without the witnesses, only a confession in open court can convict.

In Bush v. Gore, the Supreme Court halted which state's recount, deciding the 2000 election?

Florida's first count put George W. Bush ahead by 1,784 votes, a margin so thin that state law required an automatic machine recount. That recount cut his lead to 327.

Which Supreme Court case, brought by Richard and Mildred, ended state bans on interracial marriage?

Loving v. Virginia began when police raided the couple's home before dawn and found them asleep in bed. Their one-year sentence was suspended only if they left their home state for 25 years.

In United States v. Nixon, the justices ordered the president to hand over which Watergate evidence?

Tape recordings of White House conversations had to be surrendered, a unanimous court ruled. Nixon resigned sixteen days later.

In Texas v. Johnson, the Supreme Court held which act of protest to be protected free speech?

Burning the US flag outside the 1984 Republican convention in Dallas had earned Gregory Lee Johnson a year in jail. The ruling struck down flag-desecration laws then enforced in 48 states.

Which Ohio-born lawyer is the only person to have been both US president and Chief Justice?

William Howard Taft joined the Supreme Court in 1921, eight years after leaving the White House. Leading the court had long been his ambition, and he fought to get it a building of its own.

Which future justice argued six sex-discrimination cases at the Supreme Court in the 1970s?

Ruth Bader Ginsburg won five of the six as director of the ACLU's Women's Rights Project, which she co-founded in 1972. By 1974 it and related projects had joined more than 300 discrimination cases.

The Catholic Church's 'devil's advocate' was a canon lawyer appointed to argue against what?

Declaring a candidate a saint was the step he opposed, as holder of an office set up in 1587 and properly called Promoter of the Faith. Opposite sat "God's advocate", who made the case for the candidate.

Which Latin term names the unpaid work American lawyers are urged to do for at least 50 hours a year?

Pro bono is short for pro bono publico, "for the public good". New York goes further than urging: would-be lawyers there must complete 50 hours of it before they can be admitted.

Which party to a civil lawsuit, renamed the 'claimant' in English courts in 1999, brings the case?

The plaintiff files the complaint that starts a civil case. Scottish courts never used the word at all: there the party suing has always been the "pursuer".

The courtroom word 'alibi', first used in English in the 1740s, is simply the Latin for what?

Elsewhere is the whole defence: an alibi says the accused was in another place when the crime happened. Strictly speaking, any other proof of innocence is only an excuse.

The word 'mortgage' comes from Old French words with what grim literal meaning?

Dead pledge is the sense of "mort gaige": the deal dies when the debt is paid or when the payments fail. Modern French replaced the word with "hypothèque".

Which law degree, first offered by the University of Chicago in 1902, do most American lawyers hold?

Juris Doctor degrees generally take three years of full-time study. In 1902 Chicago was one of only five American law schools that demanded a college degree from applicants.

Which phrase for a stern warning comes from a 1714 British law giving crowds one hour to disperse?

Reading the riot act was literal: an official had to recite its proclamation aloud before the hour began. Anyone who stayed was guilty of a crime punishable by death.

The off-white wigs still worn in British courtrooms are traditionally made from what?

Horsehair is naturally white or off-white, which spared lawyers the mess of powdering a wig. That made it practical to keep wigs in court after fashion dropped them around 1765.

Which body was the United Kingdom's highest court of appeal until a Supreme Court replaced it in 2009?

The House of Lords heard appeals through its "Law Lords", senior judges who sat in Parliament. In 2009 the serving Law Lords simply became the new court's first justices.

A 1986 Act of the UK Parliament made it an offence to handle which fish 'in suspicious circumstances'?

Salmon is handled suspiciously, the Act says, when someone could reasonably believe it was illegally fished. A 2009 amendment extended the offence to trout, eels and other freshwater fish.

Which Supreme Court justice wrote that free speech does not cover 'falsely shouting fire in a theatre'?

Oliver Wendell Holmes used the image to uphold the conviction of a man who handed out leaflets against the First World War draft. Retellings usually add the word "crowded" and drop "falsely".

Which pope's corpse was dug up and put on trial by a successor in Rome's Cadaver Synod of 897?

Formosus had died months earlier when Pope Stephen VI had the body exhumed and brought to the papal court for judgment. The corpse was found guilty and his papacy declared void.

Under England's 'benefit of clergy', reading which 'neck verse' could save a convict from hanging?

Psalm 51 was the usual test of whether a defendant could read, and so counted as clergy owed a gentler Church court. Illiterate prisoners simply memorised its plea for mercy.

Which US Chief Justice added stripes to his robe sleeves, copying a costume from Iolanthe?

William Rehnquist, a lifelong Gilbert and Sullivan fan, borrowed the look from the Lord Chancellor in a community theatre production. He first wore the yellow stripes in court in 1995.

Which Shakespeare history play contains the line 'The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers'?

Henry VI, Part 2 gives the line to Dick the Butcher, a henchman of the rebel Jack Cade. Because the speaker is a villain bent on mob rule, some read it as backhanded praise for the profession.

In English law until 1846, what was an object called when forfeited to the Crown for causing a death?

A deodand took its name from the Latin for "to be given to God", because the Crown was supposed to sell it and spend the money on a pious cause. A cart that ran someone over was a typical example.

Which lawyer, the first woman admitted to the US Supreme Court bar, ran for president in 1884?

Belva Lockwood was the first woman to appear on official presidential ballots. Her law school withheld her diploma until she wrote to President Ulysses S. Grant, and it arrived within a week.

England's 'piepowder courts', named after travellers' dusty feet, settled disputes at which events?

Fairs and markets drew traders who would be gone within days, so justice had to be quick. The last such court, at a Bristol pub, was not abolished until 1971.

Which Dutch jurist, the 'father of international law', escaped prison hidden in a chest of books?

Hugo Grotius was serving a life sentence in Loevestein Castle when the chest that regularly brought him books carried him out. His Mare Liberum argued that the seas are free to every nation.

Who is the only US Supreme Court justice ever impeached, though the Senate acquitted him in 1805?

Samuel Chase, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, was accused of letting his partisan leanings sway his rulings. The House passed eight articles against him, but he kept his seat.

Whose 18th-century Commentaries on the Laws of England trained generations of American lawyers?

William Blackstone wrote so readably that his volumes stayed in use long after his death. Benedict Arnold even used the book as the key to the cipher in his secret letters to the British.