Biography
John Scopes was a 24-year-old high-school teacher and football coach in Dayton, Tennessee when he was indicted on May 25, 1925 for violating the state's Butler Act, which banned the teaching of human evolution in public schools. The trial — orchestrated by the ACLU as a test case and known as the "Scopes Monkey Trial" — was held July 10-21, 1925 in Dayton. Clarence Darrow led the defense; William Jennings Bryan led the prosecution and famously took the stand to defend a literal reading of Genesis. Scopes was convicted and fined $100 by the trial judge. The Tennessee Supreme Court reversed in 1927 on the technical ground that the fine should have been imposed by the jury, leaving the Butler Act on the books (until its 1967 repeal) but vacating Scopes's conviction. (Recorded as John Thomas Scopes)
Daily Worker, June 3, 1926, page 3: The June 1 Nashville report describes the pending Tennessee Supreme Court appeal against the anti-evolution statute. Scopes was in Chicago studying rather than at the hearing. Reports predicting reversal, and speculation that a decision might await judges’ reelection, are prospective opinions rather than a completed appellate judgment. No new confinement is established. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1926/1926-ny/v03-n121-NY-jun-03-1926-DW-LOC.pdf
1920s custody review: May 25, 1925 was indictment, not the initial arrest. The UMKC chronology dates the arrest warrant May 5 and the preliminary hearing and release without bond May 9; the AP centenary account dates arrest May 9. Because these events and descriptions differ, arrest is conservatively recorded as May 1925 at month precision pending inspection of the executed warrant. No incarceration or prison-release date is added: legal arrest and a hearing do not establish a prison stay. Existing photograph retained.
Sources: UMKC Scopes chronology; Associated Press centenary account.
Michael Hannon’s University of Minnesota Law Library history identifies the trial judge as John T. Raulston. It explicitly says Scopes was arrested as a formality but was not detained, with a $500 bond supplied by the newspaper backing the test case. The later punishment was a $100 fine and court costs. This fills the missing judge field while preserving the existing null custody dates and counters; the prosecution and fine are not treated as imprisonment. The source also records Darrow’s statement that he could have been jailed during the trial but was not.
Daily Worker, June 3, 1926; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.