ABSTRACT
Scopes v. State of Tennessee, 154 Tenn. 105, 289 S.W. 363, is the seminal case in the ongoing public school debate between scientists following evolutionary theory and religious fundamentalists who accept Genesis as set out in the Christian Bible as the explanation for the origin of human beings. After prayer, a petit jury was selected by the second day of trial. The jury eventually convicted Scopes, but the Supreme Court of Tennessee reversed the decision based merely upon a judicial error in assessing the fine. The Tennessee court worked through an extensive analysis that included the thought that the Butler Act did not violate the First Amendment of the US Constitution or the analogous section of the Tennessee Constitution. John Randolph Neal, a former law professor and dean at the University of Tennessee, who had been forced out by fundamentalists for his support of evolution, became Scopes's trial counsel but quickly contacted the American Civil Liberties Union.
