The law is riddled with things "everybody knows" that aren't actually true. In this April Fool's-themed episode, Tim Kowal and Jeff Lewis discuss several legal myths, half-truths, and courtroom fictions—from rules of evidence to constitutional assumptions to a Scopes Monkey Trial mythology that is more Hollywood script than record.

Key points:

• Miranda warnings aren't in the Constitution—but they're constitutionally required anyway: The specific warnings don't appear in constitutional text; they're a prophylactic rule. Yet they're binding—even Congress can’t touch them.
• Dual citizenship was never authorized—it emerged by accident: No Congress ever passed a statute permitting dual citizenship. Great Britain and German have asserted jurisdiction via conscription of the children of their subjects—even though born in the U.S. This is context directly relevant to Trump v. Barbara arguments this week.
• "One phone call" is Hollywood fiction: California Penal Code § 851.5 grants at least three completed calls within three hours of booking, plus additional calls for custodial parents.
• Circumstantial evidence carries the same weight as direct evidence: DNA and fingerprints are circumstantial; CALCRIM 223 instructs juries to treat both types equally.
• The Scopes Trial was staged, and the textbook taught eugenics: Think this was religious fundamentalism vs. science? Think again. The evolution text in question, George William Hunter's Civic Biology, ranked races hierarchically and endorsed selective breeding. William Jennings Bryan is regarded a buffoon, but his actual argument was more about local curriculum control than creationism.
• Buck v. Bell has never been overruled: Remember the monstrous 1927 opinion upholding compulsory sterilization? Still good law. Technically.

What legal tropes get irk you?