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Encouraged by George Rappelyea, (a mining engineer who managed six local coal and iron mines owned by the Cumberland Coal Company), a group of leading citizens in the small town of Dayton - the 'drug store conspirators' - decided to accept the ACLU's offer, in the hope that the publicity surrounding the trial would help to reverse the town's declining fortunes. On May 4 th the group recruited John Scopes, football coach and occasional stand-in teacher at Rhea County High School as the subject for the test case, on the basis that he had taught from the section on evolution in Hunter's A Civic Biology - the State-approved textbook. ( Dayton is situated in the valley between the Cumberland Plateau and the Appalachian Mountains. It is just a few miles West of a line from Chattanooga (36 miles to the Sou's ou' West) to Knoxville (79 miles to the North East). ) Rappelyea sent a telegram to the ACLU's New York office. The ACLU replied promptly, accepting his proposal.
Scopes was charged on May 7 th with having taught evolution on April 24 th, 1925. A preliminary hearing on May 10 th bound him over pending a specially convened Grand Jury hearing on May 25 th. The members of the Grand Jury, who are well aware of the true purpose of the charge against Scopes, handed down an indictment and Scopes was instructed to present himself at the Rhea County court house for trial on the morning of July 10 th. At no time was Scopes held in jail on this charge which, by the way, was only classed as a 'misdemeanor', not a 'crime. ' The Overture On hearing about the trial, from the leaders of the WFCA (World's Christian Fundamentals Association), on May 12 th William Jennings Bryan volunteered his services to the prosecution.
By the end of that week Clarence Darrow had contacted Scopes with an offer to appear pro bono for the defense. Darrow became the leading defense counsel, but Bryan was only one of several assistant prosecutors under the leadership of Tom Stewart (Attorney General for the Eighteenth Judicial Circuit). Act 1 - The Trial The trial ran for 8 days (plus two weekends), from July 10 th - July 21 st, inclusive, and it certainly brought Dayton the publicity the 'drug store conspirators had hoped for. At least 200 reporters, from all over the world, covered the trial; and thanks to station WGN, Chicago, the entire trial was broadcast over nationwide radio.
The defense team had the services of eight 'expert witnesses', though only one of them actually made it to the witness stand - Dr Maynard Metcalf. Thereafter Judge Raulston ruled that none of the expert testimony could be presented to the jury, since it was not relevant to the simple question: 'Did Scopes teach that humans had evolved from a lower life form or not?' He did, however, agree to having the testimony entered into the trial record so that it would be taken into account if the case went to appeal. All eight experts submitted their testimony in the form of affidavits, apparently in order to avoid cross examination. (See Part 6: The Expert Testimony for a comparison between some key points in the expert testimony and modern views on evolution. ) Of the eight days of the trial, much of which was taken up with legal arguments, the jury were only present in court for a matter of hours. They did not, for example, hear the only evidence from a defense witness delivered in person - from Dr. Maynard Metcalf's; they did not hear any of the expert testimony which was read into the record on the morning of Day 7; and contrary to the depiction in Inherit the Wind, they did not hear one word of the confrontation between Bryan and Darrow on the afternoon of Day 7. (For a detailed evaluation of Darrow's questioning of Bryan see Bryan and Darrow. ) On Day 8, though he had previously agreed that Bryan might question Darrow, Malone and Hays, Judge Raulston ruled that the preceding's of the previous afternoon had been irrelevant to the trial and should be struck from the record. This in turn put paid to any possibility of the prosecution calling the defense lawyers to give evidence.
Darrow still had a trick up his sleeve, however. Knowing that Bryan had prepared a major speech for the prosecution's closing summation , Darrow waived the defense's right to make a closing statement - which meant that Bryan could not give his summation either. Instead Darrow asked the judge to bring the jury in and instruct them to return a 'guilty' verdict. He most certainly did not change Scopes' plea from 'not guilty' to 'guilty'.
If he had entered a 'guilty' plea there would have been no basis for subsequently mounting an appeal against the 'guilty' verdict. ( The full text of Bryan's proposed speech is included in most versions of the trial transcript. See Part 15 for very reasonably priced e-book version of the transcript. ) After encouragement from Darrow, Tom Stewart and the judge, the jury took just 9 minutes to return a 'guilty' verdict. The judge asked the jury if they wanted to set the amount of the fine, but they chose to leave it to him. Chief Prosecutor Tom Stewart commented on the fact that this was possibly an improper procedure, but no one was paying attention. Judge Raulston sentenced Scopes to pay the minimum fine allowed under the act - $ 100.
Scopes subsequently claimed, both immediately after the trial and in his autobiography, that he never had taught evolution, but that the 'drugstore conspirators' were too busy drumming up publicity to let that deter them from bringing the trial to Dayton. He also stated that the defense lawyers had coached the students who gave evidence because, according to Scopes, they would have no idea what they'd learned in class nearly three months after the event! Act 2 - The Appeal When the case went to appeal before the Tennessee Supreme Court (May 1926) they rejected all of the reasons offered by Scopes' lawyers for contesting the 'guilty' verdict, but ruled that it was wrong for the judge to have set the amount of the fine and reversed the decision (January 17 th, 1927). It is worth noting that this was a majority decision - 3 for, 1 dissenting. (Normally there would have been 5 judges involved in the voting, but Judge Swiggart had been appointed after the appeal hearing, so didn't take part. ) On this basis Scopes had not been found 'guilty', and therefore didn't have to pay the $ 100 fine. On the other hand he hadn't been found 'not guilty' either, so he could, in theory, have been tried all over again on exactly the same charge.
On the Court's advice, however, Attorney-General Frank M. Thompson, who was appearing with Ed. T. Seay and K. T.
McConnico for the defense (that is - Scopes was now the plaintiff! ), took the court's advice and entered a 'note prose qui', meaning (in Latin / legalese ) that he was giving notice that the prosecution no longer wished to proceed with the case. (See Part 10: The Appeal for more details of the Supreme Court's rulings on the various points raised by Scopes' lawyers. )
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