Pittsburgh Judge Outraged at Acquittal (January 1900)

This 13 January 1900 article from the Pittsburgh Press reports an outraged judge. Despite his clear directions to the jury to find two men accused of illegally selling alcohol on Sundays guilty, the jury decided both were innocent.  One suspects the members of the jury had little doubt that the accused had in fact broken the law — but that they rather liked the idea of a Sunday glass of beer. The newspaper can be found on Google News.

Legal News from 1939

This clipping from the Pittsburgh Press of 21 April 1939, available on Google News, reports two unusual legal matters. In the first, Lieutenant-Governor Lewis of Pennsylvania disguises himself as a prisoner to form his own opinion as to whether or not a condemned prisoner is “mentally normal” and determines that “if he is feeble-minded, so am I.”

Next to it is an item about a husband fined $2 for preferring two dogs to his wife.