AP/HIST 3850 6.00
Murder and Other Crimes: Law and Justice in 20th Century North America
Examines the Canadian and American criminal justice systems from the mid-19th through late 20th century. The course focuses on important trials – such as Lizzie Borden (1892), the “”Scottsboro Boys”” (1931), and Steven Truscott (1959) – and how our explanations of these crimes are shaped by factors such as politics and the popular press, racial stereotypes, and contemporary understandings of gender and class. The course also looks at the role of the legal system, particularly the Supreme Court, showing both how the criminal law was applied in murder trials, as well as how these cases often resulted in changing interpretations of the law, and new developments in our understandings of civil rights.