Top 10 Controversial Court Cases

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­Year: 1933
Charge: ­Murder of Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr.
Plea: Not Guilty
­Verdict: Guilty


When the infant son of famed aviator Charles Lindbergh was kidnapped from his crib around 9 p.m. on March 3, 1932, people across the nation took notice. A ransom note for $50,000 was left in baby Charles' nursery, and a broken ladder was found outside of the window.

Because of the extensive media attention, Lindbergh allowed a mediator, Dr. John Condon, to negotiate with the kidnapper. After a series of five notes, Condon met with the kidnapper and gave him $50,000 for information. Condon was told that the baby could be found on a boat off the New York harbor. But an extensive search revealed neither the boat nor baby Charles.

Then, on May 12, the baby's body was accidentally discovered in woods near the Lindbergh home. As the search for the kidnapper continued, it focused on tracking any ransom money that had been spent. Investigators traced it to Bruno Richard Hauptmann, who was arrested after authorities found thousands more at his house.

­A jury found Hauptmann guilty on Feb. 13, 1933. In spite of offers to commute his sentence and monetary help for his wife and son, Hauptmann never confessed and was electrocuted on April 3, 1936.

­Year: 1913
Charg­e: Murder of Mary Phagan
Plea: Not guilty
Verdict: Guilty



Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Illustrated cover of a brochure promoting a chapter of the KKK circa 1916. ­Set against the southern backdrop of Marietta, Ga., Leo Frank, a Jewish man, was accused of murdering Mary Phagan, a young white woman who worked with him in a pencil factory. The prosecution's arguments hinged on the testimony of a black janitor at the factory named James Conley. Conley said that Frank had killed Phagan and told Conley to dispose of the body. He also said that Frank had planted notes by the body blaming a black person for the crime.

Crowds inside of the courtrooms continually hurled Jewish insults during the proceedings, underlining the hatred that resonated during that era. The white supremacist group the Klu Klux Klan even formed the Knights of Mary Phagan in re­sponse.

Despite forensic evidence pointing to Frank's innocence, he was nonetheless convicted to death by hanging. As a result of the shaky evidence, the governor of Georgia commuted the sentence to life imprisonment. Subsequently, an angry mob kidnapped Frank from jail with little resistance and killed him by lynching.

In 1986, the Georgia State Board of Paroles pardoned Frank

Year: 1949
Charge: Perjury
Plea: Not guilty
Conviction: Guilty


Ralph Morse/Time Life Pictures/
­Getty Images
Alger Hiss (left) on release from Lewisburg Prison­The Alger Hiss perjury case launched the career of then-congressman Richard Nixon, the head of the House Un-American Activities Committee­ (HUAC) that investigated potential Communist infiltration in the government.

Hiss worked for the State Department and was accused by former Communist Whitaker Chambers of being a Soviet agent. On Aug. 5, 1948, Hiss adamantly denied the charge before HUAC.

After Hiss filed a slander suit against Chambe­rs, Chambers produced a packet of typewritten and handwritten notes allegedly from Hiss, and later, strips of 35-mm film of State documents allegedly taken by Hiss. These were famously referred to as the "pumpkin papers" because Chambers had kept them in a hollowed-out pumpkin. As a result, Hiss was charged with perjury, or lying to the court while under oath.

­Hiss later admitted to writing the handwritten notes, but the source of the film and the typewritten letters remained contentious. After one jury could not come to a verdict agreement, a second case was mounted that eventually found Hiss guilty and sentenced him to five years in ­prison. Hiss maintained his innocence until his death.

­The Scottsboro Boys Trial represents one of Amer­ican history's darkest chapters. Nine young black men ranging in ages from 13 to 20 years old were arrested on March 25, 1931, for assault charges resulting from a fight that broke out on a freight train in Paint Rock, Ala. Two white women on the train -- Victoria Price and Ruby Bates (who later confessed that she lied) -- also claimed rape by the group of men.

Once the boys were taken into police custody in Scottsboro, Ala., the white community rioted outside of the jail, calling for punishment. Within five days, on March 30, the boys were indicted by a grand jury. By April 9, all but the youngest of the group had been sentenced to death by all-white juries.

The case moved to the Alabama Supreme Court in 1932, which upheld the previous convictions. Then, the U.S. Supreme Court heard the case, ruling that the defendants' rights had not been upheld, which sent the case back for retrial.

­After three trials and six years in prison, the charges were dropped for four of the boys: ­Willie Roberson, Olen Montgomery, Eugene Williams and Roy Wright. The other five -- Charles Weems, Ozie Powell, Clarence Norris, Andy Wright and Haywood Patterson -- remained in prison and were eventually released on parole years later.

Court Case 1: JFK Assassination
­Year: 1963
People involved: Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby
Charges: Assassination of JFK (Oswald); murder of Oswald (Ruby)
­Verdict: Guilty, later overturned (Ruby)


Most agree that the trials and investigations surrounding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, are the most controversial in American history. The president was shot three times on Nov. 22, 1963.

Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested for the assassination after investigators discovered a rifle hidden between two boxes with Oswald's fingerprints on them, along with empty cartridges in the Texas Book Depository. Two days later, Jack Ruby shot and killed Oswald.

On March 14, 1964, Ruby was sentenced to death by electric chair for Oswald's murder. But the Texas Supreme Court overturned the ruling on the basis that the case's publicity obstructed Ruby's right to a fair hearing. Before he could be tried a second time, Ruby died from cancer in 1967.

Despite the work of the Warren Commission and the House Select Committee on Assassinations tasked with investigating the assassination, no conclusions to the reasons and people behind it have ever been found. It is suspected that Oswald acted as part of a conspiracy, and his relationship with Ruby also remains in question.