Thursday, June 25, 2009

Legal History (and CLE) Go to the Movies

[We normally don't post about commercial events, but when one comes along that provides an excuse to put up illustrations like this, I'll bite.]

The West Legal Edcenter announces Dillinger's Moll: The Trial of Evelyn "Billie" Frechette, a webcasted Continuing Legal Education conference. According to the announcement,
In 1934, John Dillinger’s girlfriend, Evelyn “Billie” Frechette [pictured below], was put on trial in room 317 of the St. Paul Federal Building, now Landmark Center. Frechette was accused of having knowledge of a federal warrant for Dillinger and harboring a criminal. Coinciding with the Hollywood release of the movie “Public Enemies” starring Johnny Depp as John Dillinger [Depp is the one on the left], Landmark Center will present a trial reenactment featuring top Minnesota attorneys and a Minnesota Supreme Court justice, on July 14 from 7-9 p.m. A discussion panel will immediately follow the reenactment, which--together with the reenactment--will fulfill 2 CLE credits.
The reenactors are:

Honorable Paul H. Anderson
Minnesota Supreme Court

James Patrick Barone
Minnesota Assistant Attorney General

Jennifer J. Hasbargen
Minnesota Assistant Attorney General

Doug Heidenreich
Professor, William Mitchell College of Law

Patrick Ostergren
Lind Jensen Sullivann Peterson, PA

Anthony Palumbo
Anoka County Attorneys Office

Mark Priore
Priore Law Office

Richard Stebbins
Stebbins and Hegranes, LLC

Lisa Veith
St. Paul Assistant City Attorney

Frank Mabley
Greenstein Mabley & Wall LLC

Image credit

Update: Every time I see one of these lawyerly re-enactments of a historical or fictional event, often involving Lincoln or Shakespeare (as here and here and here), I wish some subtle practitioner of cultural studies with an interest in law would view a whole parcel of them and tell us all what the heck is going on. If it's just antiquarianism, I suppose the phenomenon is uninteresting, but I suspect there's more to it than that.



Image credit: Malvolio's Revenge, a mock trial by the Lawyers Committee of the Shakespeare Theatre Company of Washington