50 Interesting Court Cases

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1Holocaust denial group

Holocaust denial group

A holocaust denial group offered $50,000 to anyone who could prove that gas chambers were used to intentionally kill people at Auschwitz. They were forced by a judge to pay that money, and an additional $40,000, to Auschwitz survivor Mel Mermelstein who provided proof of that very fact.


2. When Eminem was sued in 2003 by the bully, DeAngelo Bailey for slandering him in the song "Brain Damage", the judge threw out the case and provided the ruling by rapping it.


3. A Cleveland woman named Shena Hardin was ordered by a judge to stand on a corner during rush hour for 2 days holding a sign that read "Only an idiot would drive on the sidewalk to avoid a school bus", after notoriously disregarding the law and laughing at the charges.


4. A woman won $1.3 million lottery. She hid it from her husband and immediately divorced him to avoid giving him half. He found out and sued. Due to a Family Code statute that penalizes spouses for falsifying data about their property during divorce, the judge ordered her to give him 100% of the winnings.


5. A death row inmate named Marlon Duane Kiser in Tennessee discovered there were untested fingerprints that had been found at the original crime scene. In a last-ditch effort to prove his innocence, he successfully petitioned a judge to have the tests run. They were found to be his own fingerprints.


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6Robert Groden

Robert Groden

The city of Dallas, Texas has lost every single one of 82 court cases against the same man named Robert Groden, over several decades.


7. In 2008, two judges named Mark Ciaverlla and Michael Conahan were found to be accepting money from two juvenile detention centers in return for increasing the number of residents, offenses were as minimal as mocking a principal on Myspace, trespassing in a vacant building, or shoplifting DVDs from Wal-mart.


8. In 1971, a woman petitioned a Judge for permission to sterilize her "somewhat retarded" daughter. Without a hearing, evidence, or representation for the daughter, the judge granted permission. The daughter later tried to sue the judge, but the Supreme Court voted 5-3 to grant the judicial immunity.


9. A Colorado judge named Paul Sacco sentenced violators who were brought to court for blasting loud music to an hour of listening to Barry Manilow at high volume.


10. In 1960, a 5-year-old orphan named José Luis Painecur was sacrificed in the coastal village Collileufu, Chile after the largest earthquake ever recorded. The two charged were released after 2 years, as the judge ruled they "acted without free will, driven by an irresistible natural force of ancestral tradition."


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11Dentures

Dentures

In the 1920s a Chicago man convinced his wife to pull out all her teeth then refused to get her dentures because it was 'cheaper to feed her with soup than solid food'. She took him to court and he was ordered to get her 2 new sets of teeth and a beefsteak a week.


12. Daniel Balsam is a US man who got so infuriated with constant email spam that he quit his job, got a law degree and has so far earned over $1 million in court judgments against the spammers.


13. A German biologist named Stefan Lanka claimed measles is psychosomatic and offered 100,000 Euros to anyone who proved measles is a virus. A German doctor named David Barden presented evidence of the virus. The biologist dismissed the evidence, but the local court ordered him to pay up.


14. The line "drugs are bad, m'kay?" from South Park's Mr. Mackey, was referenced by a judge in a marijuana-related court case who said Mr. Mackey's words were immortal.


15. A group of friends faked a case to get on Judge Judy and got $1500 out of it.


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16Steven Jay Russell

Steven Jay Russell

American con artist Steven Jay Russell once impersonated a prison guard to simply walk out of prison. Upon recapture Russell lowered and paid his bail by pretending to be a judge, escaped his next capture by impersonating a doctor, and did so again by faking his death, eventually landing him a 144-year sentence.


17. A witness in a Scottish court who had answered "aye" to confirm he was the person summoned was told by the Sheriff that he must answer either "yes" or "no". His name was read again and he was asked to confirm it, he answered "aye" again, and was imprisoned for 90 minutes for contempt of court.


18. During the 1995 OJ Simpson trial, the ABC, NBC and CBS networks nightly news broadcasts gave more airtime to the details of that case than to the Bosnian War and the Oklahoma City bombing combined.


19. US president Stephen Grover Cleveland developed a close relationship with his friend's baby daughter (Frances Folsom Cleveland Preston). When his friend died, a court-appointed him to administer the estate, making him closer to the then 11 year-old-girl. When she graduated university at 21, Cleveland (49-year-old) married her while President.


20. In Japan, if someone on trial is filmed while in handcuffs their hands have to be pixelated to be shown on TV. This is because a man named Kazuyoshi Miura brought a successful case to court arguing the image of him in handcuffs implied guilt and had prejudiced his trial.


21Judge

Judge

A man found a newborn baby in the subway, and when he was in family court to give a statement the judge surprised him by asking if he and his partner wanted to adopt. They said yes.


22. Katie Holmes' father negotiated a prenuptial agreement for her that reportedly filled five bankers’ boxes. Because of it, when Katie Holmes made her bombshell announcement that she was divorcing Tom Cruise, the case was able to be resolved in a mere 11 days.


23. In 2001, the United States Court of Appeals upheld the right of Alice Randall (American author) to publish a parody of 'Gone with the Wind' called 'The Wind Done Gone', which told the same story from the point of view of Scarlett O'Hara's (Fictional character) slaves, who were glad to be rid of her.


24. Nissan.com is not owned by the car company, but by a single guy named Uzi Nissan. He has been fighting the car company in court since 1999.


25. Robert H. Richards IV, who inherited the Du Pont family fortune after the death of John du Pont (of Foxcatcher fame), was convicted in 2009 of sexually abusing his 3-year-old daughter. His 8 year sentence was suspended, as the judge claimed he would "not fare well" in prison.

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