{"id":162035,"date":"2026-09-01T14:18:51","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T22:18:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/09\/01\/the-star-witness-swore-he-saw-it-in-the-moonlight-big-mistake\/"},"modified":"2026-09-01T14:18:51","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T22:18:51","slug":"the-star-witness-swore-he-saw-it-in-the-moonlight-big-mistake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/09\/01\/the-star-witness-swore-he-saw-it-in-the-moonlight-big-mistake\/","title":{"rendered":"The Star Witness Swore He Saw It In The Moonlight \u2014 Big Mistake"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><span>Ed. Note:<\/span> Welcome to our daily feature <a href=\"https:\/\/abovethelaw.com\/tag\/trivia-question-of-the-day\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Trivia Question of the Day!<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>In 1858, which Illinois trial lawyer defended a young man charged with murder and dismantled the prosecution\u2019s case by producing an almanac? The government\u2019s star witness swore he\u2019d watched the fatal blow from 150 feet away, clear as day, by the light of the moon, but the almanac revealed the moon was only in its first quarter and riding low on the horizon, nearly set, at the hour of the crime. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Hint: He handled this case without a fee, as a favor to the defendant\u2019s widowed mother, an old friend from his hardscrabble youth. <\/strong><br \/><strong><em>See the answer on the next page.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>The post <a href=\"https:\/\/abovethelaw.com\/2026\/09\/the-star-witness-swore-he-saw-it-in-the-moonlight-big-mistake\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The Star Witness Swore He Saw It In The Moonlight \u2014 Big Mistake<\/a> appeared first on <a href=\"https:\/\/abovethelaw.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"post-single__featured-image post-single__featured-image--medium alignright\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/abovethelaw.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/05\/succo-hammer-719066-300x225.jpg?resize=300%2C225&#038;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image\" alt=\"Close-up of a judge\u2019s gavel near a law book, symbolizing legal expertise, court proceedings, litigation, legal research, and the practice of law for attorneys, law firms, and legal professionals.\" title=\"\"><\/figure>\n<p><em>Ed. Note: Welcome to our daily feature <a href=\"https:\/\/abovethelaw.com\/tag\/trivia-question-of-the-day\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Trivia Question of the Day!<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>In 1858, which Illinois trial lawyer defended a young man charged with murder and dismantled the prosecution\u2019s case by producing an almanac? The government\u2019s star witness swore he\u2019d watched the fatal blow from 150 feet away, clear as day, by the light of the moon, but the almanac revealed the moon was only in its first quarter and riding low on the horizon, nearly set, at the hour of the crime. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Hint: He handled this case without a fee, as a favor to the defendant\u2019s widowed mother, an old friend from his hardscrabble youth. <\/strong><br \/><strong><em>See the answer on the next page.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>1<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/abovethelaw.com\/2026\/09\/the-star-witness-swore-he-saw-it-in-the-moonlight-big-mistake\/2\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">2<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/abovethelaw.com\/2026\/09\/the-star-witness-swore-he-saw-it-in-the-moonlight-big-mistake\/2\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Next \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ed. Note: Welcome to our daily feature Trivia Question of the Day! In 1858, which Illinois trial lawyer defended a young man charged with murder and dismantled the prosecution\u2019s case by producing an almanac? The government\u2019s star witness swore he\u2019d watched the fatal blow from 150 feet away, clear as day, by the light of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":162036,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-162035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/succo-hammer-719066-scaled-4Oxdbq.jpg?fit=2560%2C1920&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}