• Location: on the comfy loveseat with Abby
• Mood: geeky
• Music: Green Day-"I Fought the Law"

Presidents and the Law

As this community's theme for September, I plan to look at the interaction of the Presidency and the judicial system as I consider a number of famous trials and court proceedings involving United States Presidents, as well as other topics which related to both law and the presidency. Are there thirty such incidents? With a little creative thinking, I think that there probably are and more. Twenty-six presidents have been lawyers, and some of them such as John Adams and Chester Alan Arthur, were counsel and advocates in some noteworthy cases, and I plan to include this interaction in my posts.



Here are some of the topics I hope to consider in the next thirty days:

1. Thomas Jefferson and the Trial of Aaron Burr
2. John Adams and the Boston Massacre Trial
3. John Quincy Adams and the Amistad Trial
4. Abraham Lincoln: Frontier Lawyer
5. Rutherford Hayes and the Defense of Fugitive Slaves
6. Chester Alan Arthur and Defense of Elizabeth Jennings Graham
7. Benjamin Harrison Represents Venezuela
8. Marbury v. Madison
9. William McKinley Defense of Striking Coal-Miners
10. James Buchanan and the Dred Scott Decision
11. Chief Justice Taft and the Taft Court
12. Lincoln Suspends Habeas Corpus
13. Theodore Roosevelt and the Trusts
14. The Law Professors (Wilson, Taft, Clinton and Obama)
15. Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the "Court-Packing" Plan
16. Dwight Eisenhower and Brown v. Board of Education
17. The Trial of Jack Ruby
18. The United States v. Nixon
19. Jones v. Clinton
20. James Garrison and the Kennedy Assassination Investigation
21. The President's Executive Privilege
22. The Trial of Oliver North
23. The Teapot Dome
24. Lyndon Johnson and Thurgood Marshall
25. Ronald Reagan and Sandra Day O'Connor

I'm hopeful that these topics along with other anniversaries and book reviews will fill up the month. I may also look at some of the more prominent or political of the Chief Justices of the Supreme Court that were appointed by Presidents such as John Jay, Salmon P. Chase or Earl Warren.



I can't help thinking that there are some obvious subjects that are not on this list and that I am overlooking. If there is a subject along this theme that you think I have forgotten or that you are interested in, please let me know in a comment.