How 'bout a women's legal history trial?

A prince is about to stand trial for murder.

He's Hamlet, fatal assailant of the meddlesome man destined (if Ophelia had her way) to become his father-in-law.

At issue: given the welter of woe in which Shakespeare situated the troubled Dane, is the prince mentally competent to face judgment?

"The Trial of Hamlet" will take place January 31 at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. (here for tickets & image credit) Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who created the play, will preside. A jury including celebs like Helen Hunt will decide.

Karen Wada of the Los Angeles Times properly places the staging in a Court tradition, writing that "[i]n 1987, for instance, three high court jurists heard arguments over who really wrote Shakespeare's plays." (On continuing high court furor over the question, see this article by Jess Bravin.)

Blog readers no doubt also are familiar with the many trials of this sort staged by the American Bar Association.

So here's a thought:

How 'bout retrying some signature event of women's legal history? (And see here and here.)

Jumping to mind are 2, both involving IntLawGrrls foremothers:

► The 1873 conviction of Susan B. Anthony (by a U.S. Supreme Court Justice) for the offense of illegal voting.

► Any number of 1917 jailings -- at times brutal -- of Alice Paul, Lucy Burns (left), and their National Woman's Party colleagues for the "direct action campaign" against U.S. entry into World War I. As IntLawGrrls alumna Catherine Lanctot has posted, they took that campaign to "the very doorstep of the President of the United States, Woodrow Wilson."

Additional nominations welcome.

Guest blogger: Catherine Lanctot

IntLawGrrls is delighted to welcome guest blogger Catherine Lanctot (left), Professor of Law at Villanova University Law School in Pennsylvania, where she teaches Constitutional Law, American Legal History, and Legal Ethics. Cathy joined the Villanova faculty in 1988, after several years with the Civil Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. Her earlier scholarship was in the areas of employment discrimination and legal ethics in cyberspace. As is detailed in her 1st post below, Cathy's now working on the legal history of the 20th century women's suffrage movement, focusing particularly on the militant activities of Alice Paul and the National Woman’s Party. (Thanks to Legal History Blog for the head's up on this scholarly project.)

Cathy dedicates her work to the Brooklyn-born Lucy Burns, who joins other transnational foremothers in the list just below the "visiting from ..." map at right. As Cathy explains in her 2d post below, Burns endured arrests and detention in Britain and the United States in the course of campaigning for women's suffrage.

Side note: In 2007 Cathy took time out from her research project to appear on the game show Jeopardy!, where she was a 5-time winner and later a participant in the Tournament of Champions. After that brief brush with fame and fortune, she reports that she's now "retreated to the relative obscurity of academia!"

Lucy Burns, transnational foremother

In addition to guest-posting on my suffrage research project, I'd like to add another transnational foremother to those already honored by IntLawGrrls.
My nominee, Lucy Burns (left), is one of many unsung champions of the international suffrage movement. An Irish Catholic from Brooklyn, Burns met Alice Paul -- coincidentally, the transnational foremother of another IntLawGrrls guest blogger, Deborah Popowski -- in London in June 1909. Burns and Paul were under arrest for participating in a suffragette demonstration. During the 6 months that followed, the 2 young women were arrested multiple times for interrupting male politicians with demands for votes for women. In 1910, Paul returned to the United States after a month of grueling forcible-feeding in a London jail; Burns, however, stayed on as an organizer for Emmeline Pankhurst’s militant suffrage group until 1912.
Upon her return to America, Burns joined Paul and a small group of women in organizing the largest suffrage demonstration in history, timed to coincide with the inauguration of President Woodrow Wilson in March 1913. After several years of increasingly militant protest, Burns became one of the principal architects of the 1917 picket campaign. She drafted the infamous “Kaiser Wilson” banner, held below right by an unidentified woman, which prompted riots against the suffragists. Later, while in prison for picketing, Burns crafted a petition to authorities making the unprecedented demand that the imprisoned suffragists be treated as political prisoners.
During the “Night of Terror” at the Occoquan, N.Y., workhouse when suffrage prisoners were beaten into submission by prison authorities, Burns spent a night with her arms chained over her head, exhorting her colleagues to remain strong and defiant. (above left; photo credit) She later was forcibly fed during her hunger strike.
After the suffrage years, Burns retired to private life to care for her extended family.
Burns is said to have spent more time in jail for suffrage than any other American woman. Alice Paul described her friend as

about a thousand times more valiant than I, by nature.

We can all be inspired by Burns' steadfast courage and commitment to the cause of equality.