A mericans have always had a fascination with the law. Today, courtroom dramas are on television, news broadcasts regularly cover significant trials and ones involving celebrities, and a whole cable network is devoted to the courts. In the days before television, the coverage certainly did not have the same intensity, but the media still covered trials of famous villains like Al Capone and those involving important issues such as the Scopes Trial, in which a teacher was charged with violating a state law against teaching evolution.

Watching the television dramas, it is easy to get the wrong impression of what most trials are like. Real-life attorneys usually are not that exciting and do not get to pound on tables and badger witnesses into confessions. All of the evidence cannot be presented during the interrogation of a couple of witnesses and the case closed...