Eight Years After the Tree of Life Attack, the Gunman's Death Penalty Appeal Turns on Double Jeopardy
The Justice Department agrees 11 of Robert Bowers's 22 death sentences should be vacated under a 2026 Supreme Court ruling, but not the other 11.
Wednesday, October 28, 2026
The cases, the courts and the stories behind the headlines.
History
The cases and conflicts from the past that still shape the headlines today.
The USS Liberty, and the Question That Never Closed
In 1967, Israeli forces attacked an American Navy ship during the Six Day War. Both governments called it a case of mistaken identity. Many of the survivors never accepted that.
Twenty Years Later, the Duke Lacrosse Case Still Hangs Over Campus Prosecutions
A rushed prosecution in 2006 ended with three players declared innocent and a district attorney disbarred. The legal panel explains why that history comes up every time a campus case makes headlines.
The Central Park Five, From Convictions to Exoneration and a $41 Million Deal
Five teenagers were convicted in the 1989 Central Park jogger attack on the strength of confessions they quickly recanted. DNA and another man's confession cleared them 13 years later.
The Scopes Monkey Trial, the Test Case That Put Evolution in the Dock
In the summer of 1925, a small Tennessee town staged a trial over a schoolteacher and a new law against teaching evolution. It ended with a $100 fine and a debate that never really closed.
Gideon v. Wainwright and the Pencil Petition That Gave Poor Defendants a Lawyer
A drifter convicted of breaking into a Florida pool hall wrote to the Supreme Court from his prison cell. The 1963 ruling in his case is why poor defendants in America get a lawyer today.
The Lindbergh Kidnapping and the Birth of the Trial of the Century
In 1935, a carpenter from the Bronx went on trial in a small New Jersey town for the murder of Charles Lindbergh's baby son. The crowds, the press and the forensic fights set a pattern that still holds.
The O.J. Simpson Verdict at 31, and What It Taught About DNA and Juries
Thirty one years ago this week, a Los Angeles jury acquitted O.J. Simpson after an eight month trial. Defense lawyers still study how his team turned strong DNA evidence into reasonable doubt.
Why the Middle East Has Been Contested for 5,000 Years
Historian Ramon Rico traces today’s headlines back to the Bronze Age collapse, the Sea Peoples and the empires that followed.