Cause célèbre

For other uses, see Cause célèbre (disambiguation).

A cause célèbre (/ˌkɔːz səˈlɛb(rə)/ ^ⓘ KAWZ sə-LEB(-rə),^[1] French: [koz selɛbʁ]; pl. causes célèbres, pronounced like the singular) is an issue or incident arousing widespread controversy, outside campaigning, and heated public debate.^[2] The term is sometimes used positively for celebrated legal cases for their precedent value (each locus classicus or "case-in-point") and more often negatively for infamous ones, whether for scale, outrage, scandal, or conspiracy theories.^[3] The term is a French phrase in common usage in English. Since it has been fully adopted into English and is included unitalicized in English dictionaries,^[4][1][5] it is not normally italicized despite its French origin.

Tom Mooney and Angelo Herndon c. 1937. Both men became causes célèbres for the American Left in the first half of the 20th century.

It has been noted that the public attention given to a particular case or event can obscure the facts rather than clarify them. As John Humffreys Parry states, "The true story of many a cause célèbre is never made manifest in the evidence given or in the advocates' orations, but might be recovered from these old papers when the dust of ages has rendered them immune from scandal".^[6]

Etymology

In French, one of the meanings of cause is a legal case, and célèbre means "famous". The phrase originated with the 37-volume Nouvelles Causes Célèbres, published in 1763, which was a collection of reports of well-known French court decisions from the 17th and 18th centuries.

While English speakers had used the phrase for many years, it came into much more common usage after the 1894 conviction of Alfred Dreyfus for espionage during the cementing of a period of deep cultural ties with a political tie between England and France, the Entente Cordiale. Both attracted worldwide interest and the period of closeness or rapprochement officially broadened the English language.

Examples

• The murder of Edward the Martyr, England, 978
• The Becket controversy, England, 1163–1170
• The Tour de Nesle affair, France, 1314
• King Edward IV of England's marriage to Elizabeth Woodville, England, 1460s and 1470s
• The Princes in the Tower, England, 1483
• The murder of Lord Darnley, Scotland, 1567
• The execution of Mary Stuart, England, 1587
• The Gunpowder Plot, England, 1605
• The execution of Robert-François Damiens, France, 1757
• The Douglas Cause, Great Britain, 1760s
• Ireland Shakespeare forgeries, Great Britain, 1790s
• The Burr Conspiracy and ensuing show trial, United States, 1805–1807
• The Marie Lafarge case, France, 1840
• The Parkman–Webster murder case, United States, 1849–1850
• The Mortara case, Papal States, 1850s and 1860s^[7]
• The Tichborne case, United Kingdom, 1860s and 1870s
• The Vera Zasulich trial, Russia, 1878^[8]
• The R v Dudley and Stephens cannibalism case, United Kingdom, 1884
• The Dreyfus affair, France, 1890s and 1900s^[9]
• The murder trial of Lizzie Borden, United States, 1893
• The libel trial of Oscar Wilde, United Kingdom, 1895
• The murder trial of Maria Barbella, United States, 1895^[10]
• The murder trial of Adolph Luetgert, 1897
• The Brown Dog affair, United Kingdom, 1900s
• The Los Angeles Times bombing, 1910
• The Beilis case, Russian Empire, 1913^[11]
• The Sacco and Vanzetti appeals, United States, 1920s
• The Ponzi Scheme, United States, 1923
• The Scopes Monkey Trial, United States, 1925
• The St. Valentine's Day Massacre, United States, 1929
• The Scottsboro Boys case, United States, 1931
• The Lindbergh kidnapping, United States, 1932
• The Port Chicago disaster, United States, 1944
• The bombing of Dresden, Germany, 1945
• The Bhawal case, India, 1946^{[12][13][14][15]}
• The Derek Bentley case, United Kingdom, 1953
• The Petrov Affair, Australia, 1954
• The shooting of William Woodward Jr. by his wife Ann Woodward, United States, 1955
• The killing of Johnny Stompanato, United States, 1958
• The assassination of John F. Kennedy, United States, 1963
• The Tate-LaBianca murders, United States, 1969
• The Soledad Brothers case, United States, 1970
• The Thorpe affair, United Kingdom, 1970s
• The Watergate scandal, United States, 1972–1974
• The disappearance of Lord Lucan, United Kingdom, 1974
• Ted Bundy's impending trial in Aspen, 1977^[16]
• The Jonestown Cult Suicide, Guyana, 1978
• The trials of Claus von Bülow, United States, 1982–1985
• The Đorđe Martinović incident, Yugoslavia, 1985^[17]
• The murder of the Goldmark family, United States, 1985
• The Rodney King beating, United States, 1991^[18]
• The murder of Shanda Sharer, United States, 1992
• The Peter Ellis trial, New Zealand, 1993
• The murder of Stephen Lawrence, London, 1993–2015
• O. J. Simpson murder case, United States, 1994–1995^[19]
• The Terri Schiavo case, United States, 1998-2005
• David Camm, United States, 2000
• The Bain family murders, New Zealand, 2004
• The Amanda Knox trials, Italy, 2009–2015^[20]
• Sergei Magnitsky's death, Russia, 2009^[21]
• Mohamed Bouazizi's self-immolation, Tunisia, 2010^[22]
• The Julian Assange extradition, United Kingdom, 2011^[23]
• The Pussy Riot trial, Russia, 2012^[24]
• The Delhi gang rape, India, 2012^[25][26]
• The Causeway Bay Books disappearances, China, 2015
• The assassination of Marielle Franco, Brazil, 2018
• The assassination of Jamal Khashoggi, Turkey, 2018
• The Sea of Japan radar targeting incident, Japan and South Korea, 2018
• The murder of George Floyd, United States, 2020
• The murder of Sarah Everard, United Kingdom, 2021
• The trial of Kyle Rittenhouse after the Kenosha unrest shooting, United States, 2021^[27]
• Depp v. Heard, United States, 2022
• The murder of Moïse Mugenyi Kabagambe, Brazil, 2022
• The death of Mahsa Amini, Iran, 2022
• The murder of Brianna Ghey, United Kingdom, 2023
• The killing of Brian Thompson, United States, 2024
• The killing of Austin Metcalf, United States, 2025

Fictional examples

• The death of General Lamarque in Les Misérables (1832)
• The prison riot in Natural Born Killers (1994)

See also

• Trial of the century
• Lists of landmark court decisions
• List of French expressions in English
• Media circus
• Missing white woman syndrome