Editing Scopes trial (section)

{{Short description|1925 US legal case in Tennessee}} 
{{Use mdy dates|date=July 2018}}
{{Infobox court case
| name = Tennessee v. Scopes
| image = Tennessee v. John T. Scopes Trial- Outdoor proceedings on July 20, 1925, showing William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow. (2 of 4 photos) (2898243103) crop.jpg
| imagesize = 300px
| caption = On the trial's seventh day, proceedings were moved outdoors because of excessive heat. [[William Jennings Bryan]] (seated, left) is being questioned {{nobr|by [[Clarence Darrow]].}}
| court = Criminal Court of Tennessee
| full name = The State of Tennessee vs. John Thomas Scopes
| date decided = July 21, 1925
| citations = None
| judges = [[John Tate Raulston]]
| prior actions = 
| subsequent actions = ''[[#Appeal to the Supreme Court of Tennessee|Scopes v. State]]'' (1926)
| verdict = [[Guilt (law)|Guilty]] (''[[Vacated judgement|overturned]] on technicality'')
| opinions = 
| italic title = no
}}
'''''The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes''''', commonly known as the '''Scopes trial''' or '''Scopes Monkey Trial''', was an American [[legal case]] from July 10 to July 21, 1925, in which a high school teacher, [[John T. Scopes]], was accused of violating the [[Butler Act]], a [[Tennessee]] state law which outlawed the teaching of [[human evolution]] in public schools.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scopes/tennstat.htm|title=Tennessee Anti-evolution Statute—UMKC School of Law|work=umkc.edu|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090520091924/http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scopes/tennstat.htm|archive-date=May 20, 2009}}</ref> The trial was deliberately [[Staged trial|staged]] in order to attract publicity to the small town of [[Dayton, Tennessee]], where it was held. Scopes was unsure whether he had ever actually taught evolution, but he [[Self-incrimination|incriminated himself]] deliberately so the case could have a defendant.<ref>{{cite book|author=Mark Paxton|title=Media Perspectives on Intelligent Design and Evolution|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ff0Gv_w4Fm0C&pg=PA105|year=2013|publisher=ABC-CLIO|page=105|isbn=9780313380648}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Charles Alan Israel|title=Before Scopes: Evangelicalism, Education, and Evolution in Tennessee, 1870–1925|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5l4DBjpvLpgC&pg=PA161|year=2004|publisher=U of Georgia Press|page=161|isbn=9780820326450}}</ref> Scopes was represented by the [[American Civil Liberties Union]], which had offered to defend anyone accused of violating the Butler Act in an [[Test case (law)|effort to challenge the constitutionality of the law]]. 

Scopes was found guilty and was [[Fine (penalty)|fined]] $100 ({{inflation|US|100|r=-2|1925|fmt=eq}}), but the [[verdict]] was overturned on a technicality. [[William Jennings Bryan]], a three-time presidential candidate and former [[United States Secretary of State|secretary of state]], argued for the prosecution, while famed labor and criminal lawyer [[Clarence Darrow]] served as the principal defense attorney for Scopes. The trial publicized the [[fundamentalist–modernist controversy]], which set [[Christianity in the 19th century#Modernism in Christian theology|modernists]], who believed evolution could be consistent with religion,<ref>{{Cite book|title=Reluctant Modernism: American Thought and Culture, 1880–1900|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5T0l6BQc2kkC&q=christian+modernism+evolution&pg=PA7|isbn=978-0-7425-3746-0|first=George|last=Cotkin|year=2004|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|location=Lanham, MD|pages=7–14|access-date=October 5, 2013|orig-year=1992}}</ref> against [[Christian fundamentalism|fundamentalists]], who believed the word of God as revealed in the [[Bible]] took priority over all human knowledge. The case was thus seen both as a theological contest and as a trial on whether evolution should be taught in schools. The trial became a symbol of the larger social anxieties associated with the cultural changes and modernization that characterized the decade of the 1920s in the United States. It also served its purpose of drawing intense national publicity and highlighted the growing influence of [[mass media in the United States|mass media]], having been covered by news outlets around the country and being the first trial in American history to be nationally broadcast by radio.