In 1603, Sir Walter Raleigh was accused of conspiracy to commit treason against the crown in England

by attempting to overthrow King James and replace him with his cousin, Arabella Stewart, as Queen of England.

At trial, the primary evidence against Raleigh was a sworn confession

by his alleged accomplice, Lord Corbam, implicating Raleigh in this scheme. But at trial,

both Raleigh and the Crown had cards up their sleeves.

Raleigh had walked into that chamber, one of the most hated men in Britain, and by the end

of the day he had his enemies eating

out of his hand.

It helped that he had a talent for drama, such as his ending flourish, when he produced

a new secret confession written by Cobham that exonerated Rally.

But impressive as Raleigh's hand was, it ever played it.

With what we can only imagine was the slyest smile in history, the judge produced an even

newer confession from Cobbham that basically said,

"...LOL, the conversion I gave to Rally as fake, he's totally guilty."

And with that, Walter Raleigh realized that his ace in the hole had been nothing

more than a doggieered joker.

That same day, Raleigh was convicted and sentenced to death a penalty to be carried out

as swiftly and as nastily as possible. The verdict was criticized by citizens and scholars alike,

eventually leading to laws requiring the accused be able to challenge their accuser face to face.

And in turn, that eventually led to the Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution

creating the confrontation clause, which because criminal defendants threat to confront

their accusers. Such accusers can come in many stripes, eyewitnesses, bad character witnesses,

...