Tennessee v. John Scopes, Retried

This case was decided long ago. TrueJury retries it on the record, and the jury votes as if the outcome were still open.

In March 1925 the Tennessee legislature passed the Butler Act. The statute made it unlawful for any teacher in a public school supported by state funds to teach any theory that denies the story of the divine creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals. The penalty was a fine. The law said nothing about intent, nothing about whether the theory was true, and nothing about whether a teacher believed what he taught.

John Thomas Scopes was twenty-four. He taught at Rhea County High School in Dayton. That the prosecution was arranged as a test of the statute was no secret in that courtroom, and both sides conducted it as one. He was indicted in May.

The prosecution's case was short. Students from the class testified that Scopes had taught them from Hunter's Civic Biology, the state-adopted textbook, and that the lessons covered evolutionary descent. The State argued the statute's language was plain, that the legislature holds the power to set the curriculum in schools it funds, and that a teacher who takes public money is not free to teach what the public has forbidden. William Jennings Bryan, three times a candidate for President, assisted the prosecution and framed the case as a question of who controls the schools: the taxpayers or the experts.

The defense, led by Clarence Darrow, did not seriously dispute what happened in the classroom. It attacked the statute. Darrow argued the Act was unconstitutional, unreasonable, and an establishment of a particular religious reading by force of law. He assembled scientists and theologians to testify that evolution is sound science and that many Christians read Genesis without conflict with it. The trial court excluded nearly all of this testimony from the jury as irrelevant to the charge. Darrow then called Bryan himself to the stand as an expert on the Bible and questioned him at length about scripture. That examination was later stricken from the record and never reached the jury's deliberation.

At the close, Darrow asked the jury to return a verdict of guilty. He said so openly. A conviction was the only route to the appellate court where the constitutional question could be heard. Whether that request should weigh on a juror is itself a question, and the jury here is not bound by it.

Two questions must be kept apart. Whether the Butler Act was wise, or lawful, or an insult to science is one question, and it filled the newspapers. Whether Scopes did the thing the statute forbade is another, and it is narrower. Only the second is on the ballot. The evidence bearing on it is the students' testimony, the contents of the state-adopted textbook, and the defense's decision not to contest what happened in the classroom. Scopes himself did not testify.

Guilty or Not Guilty: did John Scopes violate the Butler Act as written?

We ask the jury to read the statute and read it whole. It forbids a public school teacher from teaching that man descended from a lower order of animals. That is the entire question. It does not ask whether evolution is true. It does not ask whether the law is wise.

Scopes taught a biology class. He taught from Hunter's Civic Biology, a book that traces human descent from earlier forms. His own students said so under oath, and the defense has never told this jury otherwise. That is the offense, complete.

The people of Tennessee, through their legislature, decide what is taught in schools they pay for. A teacher may disagree with that judgment. He may campaign against it, resign over it, or sue. He may not stand at the front of a public classroom and quietly overrule it. We ask for a verdict that says the words of a statute mean what they say.

We ask the jury to look at what actually stands behind this charge. The State of Tennessee adopted Hunter's Civic Biology and prescribed the course he taught from it. Then the State prosecuted him for teaching it.

A statute that cannot be obeyed and complied with at the same time has not given fair notice of anything. Scopes worked from the assigned book and covered assigned material. The testimony against him was brief, drawn from schoolboys, and shaped around the contents of the book rather than around anything particular he was shown to have said.

And note what this jury has never heard. The scientific testimony was excluded. The theological testimony was excluded. The examination of Mr. Bryan was stricken. You are asked to convict on a record deliberately stripped of everything that might explain it. We say the State has not carried its burden, and we ask for Not Guilty.