1932Congress approves the Lindbergh Act, making kidnapping a capital federal offense. The law was passed after the historic kidnapping of the infant son of aviator and military officer Charles Lindbergh. After the U.S. Supreme Court struck down certain death penalty statutes in the 1970s, kidnapping on its own is no longer a capital offense.1967Tennessee Gov. Buford Ellington repeals the state’s “Monkey Law,” the subject of the famous 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial. Tennessee law previously made it unlawful to …