Back in 1997, Stanford University conducted a 90 minute dramatization of the trial of Lizzie Borden. The jury was the large attending audience and the presiding justices were Stanford alums Sandra Day O’Connor and William Rehnquist. This article is from the September 19, 1997 issue of the Palo Alto Weekly online edition, and describes the event and the outcome.
STANFORD: Lizzie Borden walks free once again
Mock trail at Stanford relives famous case. Popular opinion convicted her of the dastardly deeds more than 100 years ago. But the evidence was as thin then as it was Tuesday when Lizzie Borden walked free again after a Stanford jury refused to convict her of killing her father and stepmother.
The jury in this case was about 720 people who filled Dinkelspiel Auditorium. In this mock trial, Lizzie Borden was actually played by third-year Stanford law student Julia Wilson, but the two judges were real enough: Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor of the U.S. Supreme Court.
The mock trial was held this week because Rehnquist and O’Connor, members of the Stanford Law School Class of 1952, were on campus participating in their 45-year class reunion. Both are distinguished now and were distinguished then–Rehnquist finished first in the class academically, and O’Connor finished third.
The dramatization of the trial of Lizzie Borden was held in honor of installing Barbara Babcock as the first Judge John Crown Professor of Law, a newly endowed professorship. Babcock played the role of Borden’s defense attorney. Fittingly enough on a day to honor her, Babcock’s client walked free.
Lizzie Borden was charged with hacking to death her father and stepmother in Fall River, Mass. in 1892. She was convicted in the court of popular opinion, but set free by a jury of 12 men.
Read the rest of the article here.
This related piece, published on September 12, 1997, also discusses the event.
And here, where a piece appeared in the California Bar Journal, October. 1997.
