Accused And Innocent : Murder Trial

Racial prejudice against McMillian is shown when the case was moved to a predominantly white county, therefore excluding other African-Americans from participating in the trail. Another example of racial prejudice against McMillian is shown when the court determines him to be guilty, despite hundreds of alibis proving his innocence and faulty allegations (Stevenson, 2014, p. 49-52, 66). These two examples show how racism plagues the American criminal

I commence with this anecdote for several reasons one of which is to humbly acknowledge my unique, and privileged position as a Black female scholar in the midst of a war waged against Black bodies. Another reason is to recognize police brutality as a national endemic that plagues Black communities, unveiling remnants of anti-Black racism that legitimately suppresses the lives of Blacks in America . The non-indictments in each case concerning the sanctioned murder of Black youths evoke a

August 9th 2014, Ferguson Missouri, an unarmed black teen Michael Brown was shot, and fatally wounded by a white police officer by the name of Darren Wilson. As a direct result of deciding not to indict Officer Wilson, the black community was out raged! Riots, looting, and damage to businesses soon followed the judge’s ruling. The trial was unlike normal trials which were treated with more expedience in the process, the grand jury in Officer Wilson case met for three months and 25 days. (Buchanan, et. al. 2014)

When it comes to the presentation of the information in this article Brown excels in crediting himself. When he references the many interviews, he has with different people involved within the case this increases his credibility because it shows that he took the time out to individually interview each of these people to discover the truth behind what happened in the case.

Confessions have become one of the most valued pieces of evidence in the criminal justice system. What many people, including jurors, may not know is that the process to obtain a confession can vary greatly. Many confessions can be coerced by very abnormal and dangerous situations. A prime example of a suggestive interrogation with a false confession comes from the documentary titled Murder on a Sunday Morning. Alongside, the analysis of the confession given in this documentary will be the critical analysis of three separate academic articles with findings that could have better served the defendant of this case.

The Scottsboro boys were nine African American teenagers falsely accused of raping two white women on a train in Alabama during the year 1931. No crime in American history that never occurred has produced as many trials, convictions, and retrials as the alleged gang rape of two white girls by nine black teenagers did. This tragedy marks a time in the United States where African Americans were not receiving the right to a fair trial and encountering racism because of their skin color. This court case is seen as one of the major examples that one innocent person or in this case many innocent people have been convicted and punished for a crime they did not commit.

With no amount of proof, the police believed the girls accusations simply because they were white and the boys were black. The newspaper headlines read: “ALL NEGROES POSITIVELY IDENTIFIED BY GIRLS AND ONE WHITE BOY WHO WAS HELD PRISONER WITH PISTOL AND KNIVES WHILE NINE BLACK FIENDS COMMITTED REVOLTING CRIME.” This article highlights how brutal the people were towards the boys. Another example of the horrendous racism is when the only lawyers given to the boys, were the worst lawyers in town. The court decided that the boys were worth so little that they would give them the lawyers that hadn’t won a case in decades. Despite having no real evidence, no real witnesses or a case at all. Over the course of the two decades eight out of the nine boys were sentenced to death, the last, youngest boy was sentenced to a life in

What did the judge do wrong? Which judicial selection option—either appointment, election, or merit—would help to reduce instances of judicial misconduct?

A young man’s brutal death at the hands of the police is found justified in a court of law due to his “suspicious” appearance: a black hoodie and his hands in his pocket. An elderly woman is fatally shot in her home for her relation to a suspected criminal. A married man with two toddlers is choked to death after a minor traffic stop by an officer who later claimed that his unarmed victim was wielding a gun. These people all have a few commonalities: the color of their skin, their presumed guilt at first sight, and their ultimate unjustified death administered by the law force. These are not uncommon occurrences. Due to the staggeringly disproportionate rate of African-Americans killed by the police, and the underlying rampant racial profiling, police brutality towards blacks in America must be called to light.

In the article, Everything you think you know about the death of Michael Brown is wrong, and the man who killed him admits it, written by Michael Harriot from The Root, the author uses evidence directly from the Michael Brown case and demonstrates that he sides with Brown by constantly attacking the police officer’s claims of being guilt free. While McCoy’s article castigates the unreasonable decision to fire upon Brown by placing a huge emphasis on Wilson’s discrimination against African Americans through the usage of unclear evidence and straw man, Pearce’s article presents the event in a neutral tone by utilizing testimonies from witnesses; In Harriot’s article, the author conveys bias perspective towards Wilson’s story as shown through authority. Consequently, this emphasises the necessity for the audience to observe both sides of the situation and judge with a calm rational mind in order to differentiate the falsities from the media to

Darryl Hunt is an African American born in 1965 in North Carolina. In 1984, he was convicted wrongfully of rape and murder of Deborah Sykes, a young white woman working as a newspaper editor. This paper researches oh his wrongful conviction in North Carolina. Darryl Hunt served nineteen and a half years before DNA evidence exonerated him. The charges leveled against him were because of inconsistencies in the initial stages of the case. An all-white bench convicted the then nineteen-year-old Hunt, even though there was no physical evidence linking him to the crime. A hotel employee made false claims that he saw Hunt enter the hotel bathroom, and later emerge with bloodstained towels. Other witnesses also fixed Hunt to the case.

once it was written down, one could not have the authority to alter it unless a certain situation is in need. Idealistically, Babylonian laws were favored towards the rich and the strong. Slowly moving towards today's society, Laws are created to protect of all people. For example, In the United States, the First Amendment which guarantees freedom of expression. This encourages and increases effective democracy. Regarding being accused, one of the more specific details today is the “innocent until proven guilty” In the ancient world, one doesn’t go a lengthy process to accuse someone. Now, the jury system consisted of lengthy process and that evidence is crucial to determine any possible consequence of the accused. Many of these ideas and values

In recent years, it has been revealed through the use of video that law enforcement in America must rethink how they train their officers and America must rethink how it will fight against the racism which was apparent in the videos. In an expository approach, the film team conducts interviews with civil rights leaders, police officials, victims in the videos, and the family members of victims who were killed in some of the videos. The documentary begins this subject by showing footage of the killing of Eric Garner(graphic). This video shows a police officer choke holding Eric Garner to death while trying to arrest the man. This video is a horrific sight and led to mass protests across the nation.

For this course reflection, I am going to talk about the video we watched in class “Murder on A Sunday Morning” and Chris statics on Crime and Deviance. Its only right that I start off and tell you my feeling towards the situation, I was literally left speechless at not some but many parts of the video. One thing I can say, I am a black male and I have witness being judged and watched over my action solely just because of the color of my skin. The Part of the video that really stuck out to me is when the husband took the stand in front of the jury, and said under oath that this young black 15-year-old boy shot and robbed his wife. I could never understand how you can point out a young man to the jury and say he committed a crime, when you know you are not 100 percent sure it was them. Is Justice really Justice if it is

In On Death Row, but Is He Innocent? Nicholas Kristof explores the position that the evidence that convicted Kevin Cooper, an inmate on death row in San Quentin State Prison, may be unreliable. In 1983, a California professor drove to his neighbor’s house to pick up his eleven-year-old son. He peered through the window to find the house in a state of bloody disarray. Amongst the blood was the bodies of his neighbor’s family and the lifeless body of his son. Additionally, the professor Joshua Ryen who was stabbed multiple times, but still clinging to life. Kristof highlights the overwhelming evidence of police tampering with evidence that sent Kevin Cooper to death row. Additionally, Kristof suggests evidence as to Cooper’s innocence was not given proper scrutiny. Therefore, Kristof alleges Cooper’s case, particularly the evidence, should be reviewed. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger denied this request. Although as Attorney General of California, Jerry Brown should little interest in the case, as Governor he is currently reviewing the case.