what is a test case?

     What is a test case? In a way, there's no such thing. All of the cases in United States courts are real. Many people assume that a "test case" means a pretend case, invented just to see how a new law will work out in court, or for the sake of argument, as in a "moot" court. A test case is an actual case. The person being tried may have broken a law on purpose, because he or she disagreed with it, but the case is real. The most famous example of a test case is still the Scopes trial from 1925. Scopes was a teacher who disagreed with a new law that made it illegal to teach about evolution in the Tennessee public schools. Scopes broke the law and was arrested. Scopes had other choices--quitting his job, protesting to the board of education while obeying the law--but he chose to break the law, because he wanted to be tried in court for teaching what he believed to be accurate science. Other people have made similar choices, and have become "test cases".