YouTube video by Crumbs of History

What happens when a lawyer walks into a courtroom and says, "My client would like to sue the Devil?" This isn't a joke. It's real American legal history. Welcome to the most absurd courtroom you'll ever enter. We're opening the case file on one of the most bizarre strange lawsuits ever filed: United States ex rel. Gerald Mayo v. Satan and His Staff, the story of the prisoner who sued the Devil in 1971... and almost won. We'll show you the actual court documents and reveal the mind-bending legal loophole that got the case dismissed (spoiler: it involves serving Satan a subpoena). But this story is just the beginning. We're tracing the long, wild history of supernatural litigation, from a medieval tract depicting a courtroom showdown between Lucifer and Jesus, to the classic American folktale, “The Devil and Daniel Webster.” We explore why humans have a burning desire to put the forces of good and evil on trial and how these legal oddities reveal profound truths about our own ideas of justice, blame, and free will. This is the intersection of law, religion, and pure audacity. If you're ready for a verdict on the weirdest cases in history, subscribe now and take your seat in the jury box.

A review of Merrile D Peterson’s The Great Triumvirate: Webster, Clay, and Calhoun (1987) (Rating 4 of 5) In my earlier review of the ...