On Mar. 21, 1925, Tennessee Governor Austin Peay signed the Butler Act (Tenn. HB 185, 1925) which prohibited the teaching of evolution in any Tennessee state-funded school and university. The law remained on the books until 1967.

Clarence Darrow, an exceptionally competent, experienced, and nationally renowned criminal defense attorney led the defense along with ACLU General Counsel, Arthur Garfield Hays. They sought to demonstrate that the Tennessee law was unconstitutional because it made the Bible, a religious document, the standard of truth in a public institution.

The prosecution was led by William Jennings Bryan, a former Secretary of State, presidential candidate, and the most famous fundamentalist Christian spokesperson in the country. His strategy was quite simple: to prove John Scopes guilty of violating Tennessee law.

The judge, a conservative Christian, began each day’s court proceedings with prayer and did not allow the defense to call any expert scientific witnesses. Darrow responded with an unusual trial maneuver that paid off. He called opposing counsel, Bryan, as an expert witness on the Bible and proceeded to publicly humiliate him over the course of days by questioning him on his literal interpretation of the Bible. Bryan fell into every trap and further undermined his credibility by stating, “I do not think about things I do not think about. …” He died a week after the trial, exhausted and publicly humiliated.

The trial lasted only eight days with the jury returning a verdict of guilty in less than nine minutes. John Scopes was fined $100. The ACLU hoped to use the opportunity as a chance to take the issue all the way to the Supreme Court, but the verdict was reversed by state supreme court on a technicality.