50 Fun Facts About Law

How many justices sit on the Supreme Court of the United States?

The number has been fixed by statute since 1869; the Court receives about 7,000 petitions a year and hears around 80.

Which 1803 case established the US Supreme Court's power of judicial review?

Chief Justice John Marshall used a dispute over an undelivered commission to claim the most important power the Court has.

Who was the first Chief Justice of the United States, nominated by George Washington in 1789?

The Senate confirmed him on 26 September 1789, two days after the Judiciary Act created the Court.

Who became the first woman to serve on the US Supreme Court in 1981?

Reagan had promised during his campaign to appoint a woman, and the Senate confirmed her 99 to 0.

How many of his 32 Supreme Court civil rights cases did NAACP lawyer Thurgood Marshall win?

The biggest was Brown v. Board of Education; he was the Court's first African American justice and served until 1991.

In which year was Brown v. Board of Education decided?

The vote was 9-0 and Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote it; the case began when Oliver Brown's daughter was turned away from her neighbourhood school in Topeka.

Brown v. Board of Education partially overruled which 1896 'separate but equal' decision?

Homer Plessy had been arrested for sitting in a whites-only railway car in Louisiana.

What was the vote in the 1966 Supreme Court ruling requiring police to tell suspects of their right to silence?

Ernesto Miranda was retried without his confession, convicted anyway, and was stabbed to death in a bar fight in 1976.

How did Clarence Earl Gideon write the Supreme Court petition that won poor defendants a free lawyer?

The 1963 ruling was 9-0; at his retrial with a proper lawyer the jury acquitted him in an hour.

Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973 by what margin?

Justice Harry Blackmun wrote the opinion; 'Jane Roe' was Norma McCorvey; the ruling was overturned by Dobbs in 2022.

Which 2022 case overruled Roe v. Wade?

The decision returned abortion regulation to the states after 49 years.

The Fifth Amendment bars trying anyone twice for the same offence. What is that protection called?

England and Wales loosened their version in 2003, allowing retrial of serious offences when new and compelling evidence turns up.

The Latin phrase habeas corpus, the name of the writ against unlawful imprisonment, literally means what?

The English Habeas Corpus Act of 1679 codified it, and Lincoln famously suspended it during the Civil War.

How many times has the US Constitution been amended since it took effect in 1789?

The first ten came together as the Bill of Rights in 1791; the 27th, on congressional pay, was ratified in 1992 after 202 years.

Which Founding Father is popularly called the 'Father of the Constitution'?

He also led the push for the first ten amendments in the First Congress, and later served as fourth president.

The Twenty-first Amendment of 1933 is unique in US history for what reason?

It ended Prohibition by undoing the Eighteenth Amendment on 5 December 1933; the Volstead Act had done the enforcing.

Which is the only US state whose private law is based on civil law rather than English common law?

Its code descends from French and Spanish law rooted in Rome; judges follow jurisprudence constante rather than binding precedent, and its counties are called parishes.

Roughly what fraction of the world's population lives under common law or mixed common-law systems?

Common law grew from the travelling judges Henry II sent around England in the 12th century, and spread with the British Empire.

Which 12th-century English king set up travelling judges, laying the foundation of the common law?

They applied a set of laws 'common to all England' rather than local custom, which is where the name comes from.

Magna Carta was sealed by King John at Runnymede on 15 June of which year?

Pope Innocent III annulled it within weeks, which set off the First Barons' War; four copies of the 1215 text survive.

How many original 1215 copies of Magna Carta survive?

Two are in the British Library, one at Lincoln Castle and one at Salisbury Cathedral.

The Code of Hammurabi, the best-preserved law code of the ancient Near East, is inscribed on a stele of what stone, more than two metres tall?

It was dug up at Susa in 1901 and now stands in the Louvre; it is the source of the 'eye for an eye' principle.

The 'eye for an eye' principle found in the Code of Hammurabi is known by what Latin name?

Penalties in the Code varied by social class: the same injury cost more if the victim was a free man.

Roman law's foundational tablets were drawn up around 450 BC by the decemviri, a board of how many men?

The decemviri wrote them down after plebeian agitation, and the tables were posted publicly so every Roman could read them.

The Napoleonic Code, still the basis of French civil law, came into force in which year?

It swept away the patchwork of feudal laws and forbade judges from issuing general rulings of a legislative kind.

Socrates was tried in Athens in 399 BC on charges of impiety and what else?

On a jury of about 501, the vote was 280 to 221; he drank the hemlock himself at the age of 70.

How many people were executed by hanging in the Salem witch trials of 1692-93?

Fourteen women and five men; Giles Corey was separately pressed to death with stones for refusing to enter a plea.

The 1925 Scopes 'Monkey Trial' pitted Clarence Darrow for the defence against which famous prosecutor?

Scopes was fined $100 for teaching evolution; it was the first American trial broadcast nationally on radio.

Which lawyer told the O. J. Simpson jury 'If it doesn't fit, you must acquit'?

Simpson was acquitted on 3 October 1995; a civil jury found him responsible for the deaths in 1997.

The main Nuremberg trial of Nazi leaders was held from November 1945 to October 1946 in which building?

Twelve defendants were sentenced to death; the tribunal is regarded as the true beginning of international criminal law.

The International Court of Justice, the UN's principal judicial organ, sits in which building?

It has 15 judges elected to nine-year terms and is the only principal UN organ outside New York; the International Criminal Court is a separate body.

How many judges sit on the International Court of Justice?

They are elected by the General Assembly and Security Council for nine-year terms, and no two may come from the same country.

What was the traditional number of jurors in England?

Scotland uses larger juries, and in Williams v. Florida (1970) the US Supreme Court held that a jury of six was constitutional.

A US federal grand jury has how many members?

A grand jury decides whether to indict; the trial jury that hears the case is the petit jury.

Where does the term 'the bar', as in 'called to the bar', come from?

Modern courts still keep a physical rail separating lawyers from the public gallery.

In the UK, court advocacy is almost always done by which branch of the legal profession?

Solicitors have their own body, the Law Society; in Scotland the courtroom advocates are simply called advocates.

The statue of Lady Justice on the dome of London's Old Bailey is unusual because she lacks what?

The first known blindfolded Justice is Hans Gieng's 1543 statue on the Fountain of Justice in Bern.

What do the scales carried by Lady Justice represent?

The sword stands for the power to enforce a decision, swiftly and finally.

The Old Bailey, London's Central Criminal Court, was built on the site of which notorious prison?

The prison came down in 1904 and Edward VII opened the new courthouse in 1907; more than 100,000 trials were held on the site between 1674 and 1834.

Which British barrister coined 'presumed innocent until proven guilty' in 1791?

The idea itself is far older: Justinian's Digest puts the burden of proof on the accuser, not the accused.

Who holds attorney-client privilege and may waive it?

One of the earliest cases affirming it, Berd v. Lovelace, was decided in England in 1577.

In which year was trial by combat abolished in England?

A defendant in Ashford v Thornton successfully demanded it in 1818, embarrassing Parliament into passing the abolition the next year.

The Eighteenth Amendment, which brought in Prohibition, was ratified in which year?

Congress passed the Volstead Act to enforce it, and the ban ran from 1920 until repeal in 1933.

Roughly how many petitions does the US Supreme Court receive each year, and how many does it grant?

Four justices must vote to take a case, and the term begins on the first Monday in October.

US Supreme Court justices hold office 'during good behavior', which in practice means what?

They serve until they die, retire, resign or are impeached and removed; the Court moved into its own building only in 1935.

The charter signed in Philadelphia in 1787 is the world's oldest what still in force?

It was signed in Philadelphia on 17 September 1787 and took effect on 4 March 1789.

Under Roman law as recorded in Justinian's Digest, on whom does the burden of proof lie?

The rule 'not on him who denies' is the ancestor of the modern presumption of innocence.

Which Sumerian ruler formulated the first known law code, in the 22nd century BC?

It consisted of casuistic 'if ... then' statements, centuries before Hammurabi's stele.

Hans Kelsen's Pure Theory of Law posits that every legal system rests on a 'basic norm' called what?

His major opponent, Carl Schmitt, rejected both positivism and the very idea of the rule of law.

In which book did Baron de Montesquieu advocate a separation of powers?

John Locke's Two Treatises argued similarly, in contrast to Hobbes's absolutist Leviathan.