Primarily a case about woman suffrage and sexual discrimination, United States v. Susan B. Anthony was the first trial of the famous feminist and was a criminal trial in the federal courts. In the federal election in November 1872, Anthony, the best-known advocate of woman suffrage, registered to vote and then voted. The government charged her with the crime of voting without “the legal right to vote in said election district”—she, in the words of the indictment, “being then and there a person of the female sex.” The trial was widely followed by newspapers throughout the United States. She was convicted in federal court under federal law for violating state law about who was eligible to vote. New York state law prohibited women from voting, and a recent federal law provided for the criminal prosecution of anyone who voted in congressional elections “without having a lawful right to vote.”

One-hundred-and-fifty years later, after a conservative anti-abortion group changed their name to include hers, the famous feminist’s second trial has become one of restorative justice. How will a woman who wrote widely about gender inequity and almost nothing about abortion be remembered by younger and future generations.

The screenplay is in development.

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