When Juries Follow an ‘Unwritten Law’
When murder used to be legal in America
An unwritten law can be a dangerous thing, as shown in Star Spangled Scandal by Chris DeRose.
The book details an 1859 murder trial that was the first to whip up a media frenzy in the age of telegraphs. U.S. Congressman Daniel Sickles shot and killed U.S. Attorney Philip Barton Key—son of Francis Scott Key, it so happens—in the nation’s capital, under th…
