Jerry Summers: Dayton Had Fleeting Fame From 1925 Scopes Trial Monday, July 26, 2021 - by Jerry Summers Jerry Summers On July 21, 1925, Judge J.T. Raulston fined teacher John T. Scopes in the amount of $100 in violation of the provision of the Tennessee Constitution that prohibited the assessment of any fine over $50 unless it had been imposed by a jury of 12 persons in the historic battle over evolution in the Circuit Court of Rhea County in Dayton. The all-male jury had mostly sat in the jury room from July 10-21 while renowned litigators William Jennings Bryan (prosecution) and Clarence Darrow (defense) and local lawyers from the area presented experts and argued about the merits of the theories for and against teaching the Tennessee law under the statute in Chapter 27 of the Public Acts of 1925, known as the Anti-Evolution Act.