Scatter Brained

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S C A T T E R B R A I N E D
1921:
 Anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti are sentenced to death 
on murder and robbery charges with scant evidence; intel-
lectuals like George Bernard Shaw and Dorothy Parker argue 
the  pair  were  guilty  only  of  being  radicals  during  an  anti-
Communist Red Scare. It doesn’t matter; they hang.
1921:
 When a sickly trollop expires in Fatty Arbuckle’s hotel 
room, the portly fi lm star fi nds himself charged with rape 
and murder. Th
  ough acquitted, his career is ruined.
1924:
 Wealthy college boys Nathan Leopold and Richard 
Loeb murder a teenager just for fun, their “perfect crime” 
foiled when Leopold leaves his glasses with the body. Lawyer 
Clarence Darrow gives a 12-hour speech in their defense, 
sparing them from hanging.
1925:
 Darrow, the era’s reigning liberal heavyweight, leaps 
to the defense of Tennessee schoolteacher John Scopes in the 
then- and now-legendary “Monkey Trial.” Darrow loses the 
case despite much grandiose speechifying by him and prose-
cutor William Jennings Bryan; Scopes is fi ned a measly $100 
for teaching evolution despite a state law banning it (though 
he never pays); and 80-plus years later we’re still arguing 
about monkeys. Nice work, fellas.
1931:
 Nine black teenagers are falsely accused of gang-rap-
ing two white women in Alabama. Th
  e Scottsboro Boys—so 
known for where they were jailed—are fi rst sentenced to 
death, then variously paroled or pardoned in two landmark 
Supreme Court decisions.
1935:
 Th
  e infant son of aviator Charles “Lucky” Lindbergh is 
kidnapped and murdered. Suspected killer Bruno Haupt-
mann’s trial generates worldwide publicity. Convicted, Haupt-
mann is electrocuted in 1936.
1942:
 Swashbuckling fi lm star Errol Flynn is tried and 

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 acquitted of statutory rape, only furthering his rep as a devil-
may-care ladies’ man. (Or little girls’ man, as it were.)
1945:
 Th
  e Nuremberg Trials. An international tribunal de-
cides the fate of two dozen high-ranking Nazis. Journalists 
expecting monstrous defendants are surprised by the ordi-
nariness of nasties like Hermann Göring, remarking on “the 
banality of evil.”
1949:
 State department offi
  cial Alger Hiss denies spying for 
Russia, despite seemingly damning evidence to the contrary. 
Because the statute of limitations on the spying charge itself 
has run out, he is tried and convicted of perjury.
1951:
 American Communists Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are 
convicted of passing U.S. nuclear secrets to Russia. Executed in 
1953, the Rosenbergs’ supposed guilt remains controversial.
1966:
 Hollywood glam-girl Hedy Lamarr shoplifts $86 
worth of underwear from an L.A. department store. When 
confronted in the parking lot, she (reportedly) says, “Th
 e 
other stores let me do it!” After much ballyhoo on her behalf 
from an adoring public, she is acquitted.
1970:
 Charles Manson and his merry gang of murderers are 
convicted of murdering actress Sharon Tate and six others in 
highly publicized proceedings, further courting media atten-
tion by carving giant 
X
’s into their foreheads.
1976:
 Newspaper heiress Patty Hearst is convicted of rob-
bing a federal bank as part of the radical Symbionese Libera-
tion Army, the coverage of which sells a lot of newspapers. 
Coincidence? Or genius?
1982:
 John Hinckley Jr., the not-quite assassin of president 
Ronald Reagan, successfully pleads insanity, causing several 
states to rewrite laws regarding the insanity plea. Th
 ough he 
is now famous, Jodie Foster still cruelly refuses to date him.