The Clutter Case Analysis

It was a time in the city’s history to get the perpetrators of the crime committed and to be recognized as solving the greatest crime of time. Media and public presence played a huge role in pressuring law enforcement to figure out this awful incident. The demand from the public was pushing from all sides of this story to get answers.

Her trial, which started 10 months after the murders, was lead by what towns’ people called the “dream team” of lawyers. The jury had 12 men on it that believed that she was not guilty because after they showed her the skull of her father in court, she fainted, and because she was a girl. They thought that no girl was capable of committing such a crime.

What I have interpreted this as, is the court system is trying to get through these things as quickly as possible, as well as try to convict someone as quickly as possible to give the community a sense of reassurance that a murderer is off the streets. Furthermore, if the

In Truman Capote’s book In Cold Blood, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith commit a murder of all four Clutter family members with no apparent motive. They go all over the United States running from the authorities, while also passing bad checks. They are later caught in Las Vegas and sentenced to death row by a jury comprised of family men that were associated with the Clutter’s. Many years go by before they are hung on April 14, 1965. Considering that Perry Smith had many mental problems that most likely have developed from his early childhood, he should be tried with his disorders in mind and given psychiatric care.

In the 1960s a murder was taken place, the Egan murders. This included Peter, Barbara, and Gerald Egan. The finally verdict ended being that their prime suspect and accused (Jo Leone) was found innocent, primary due to the jury receiving personal threats as well as the prosecutor, who didn’t seem to press hard enough on the defendant.

Hickock was able to use this to his advantage, often referring to Smith as “honey,” to appeal to his attraction (15). Hickock was the one who wanted to rob the Clutters originally; he was the one who obtained the information, albeit false, from Floyd Wells. Smith was persuaded later to help out, most likely by Hickock promising him a hefty sum from the job. Later, at the Clutters’ abode, Smith told Hickock, “‘these people are telling the truth. The one who lied is your friend Floyd Wells. There isn’t any safe, so let’s get the hell out of here,’” but, “He said he wouldn’t believe it till we searched the whole house,” and then, “says Dick, after we’ve found the safe, we’ll cut their throats” (239). Smith preferred not to kill them, and told Hickock he wanted to leave, but he refused to leave and insisted that they should continue searching and then kill them. Hickock directed Smith to murder the Clutters, which according to the wording of the law, proves he is guilty of this aggravating circumstance.

Early on, Capote makes Smith seem a more sympathetic character, “Yes, and he had told Dick was true… Sierra Madre?” (Capote, 17). Capote makes Perry seem almost childlike as he describes Perry’s naive plan to search for gold in the Sierra Madre, which causes the reader to wrongly assume Smith is innocent, or at least more so than Hickock. While describing the murder of the Clutter family, Perry states, “And I thought… So I went back upstairs,” (277). Truman Capote deliberately includes Perry’s feeling that “It was like [he] wasn’t a part of it. More as though [he] was reading a story,” to show the level of dissociation Perry experiences. Even after Smith is found guilty of murder, the reader still feels some sympathy for Perry as Capote hints that Perry cannot be held accountable for his own actions. Just before he is hanged, Smith remarks, “It would be meaningless to apologize for what I did. Even inappropriate. But I do. I apologize,” (392-393). Capote includes Perry’s last words, which carry significant emotional weight, to evoke a final sympathetic reaction in the reader. Through Perry Smith, Capote creates pathos to demonstrate the harsh nature of capital punishment and cause the reader to wonder if it is the right

A significant reason the courts continued with prosecuting Kwidzinski was that reversing the charges would make people question the legitimacy of the case all together. The state’s attorney’s office had already charged three alleged attackers. If there was any doubt of Kwidzinski being involved in the case there would be a problem with the lawyers of the other two attackers by trying to jump on the bandwagon to freedom. Even though Kwidzinski may have been justifiably innocent and wrongly accused, the attorneys for Jasas and Caruso would have claimed their clients were wrongly accused as well.

A lot of the townspeople from Laramie were shocked that the criminals were from their own community. Many people were in denial that something like this could happen in their town, while others wanted to make the townspeople accountable. “My secret hope was that they were from somewhere else, that then of course you can create that distance: We don't grow children like that here. Well, it's pretty clear that we do grow children like that here” (Jacobus 1640). “it happened here...we need to own this crime. I feel. Everyone needs to own it...We ARE like this” (Jacobus 1645). The people of Laramie had once believed that they were a live-and-let-live kind of place and now they were beginning to doubt this. “live and let live. That is such crap...basically what it boils down to: if I don't tell you I'm a fag, you won’t beat the crap out of me. I mean, what's so great about that?” (Jacobus 1645). People were left in a state of confusion. Even the criminals “don’t seem to understand the reasons for their crime any better than anyone else” (Evans). Matthew Sheppard's attack influenced the attitudes of many people in Laramie and forced them to realize the truth of the attitudes of others in the community.

Now look at Rosina Townsend who maintained the brothel. Mrs. Townsend’s brothel was a high-end brothel, but her reputation or her word was worth mo more than a piece of dirt in the bottom of your shoe. This was demonstrated the most during the trial. Judge Ogden Edwards spent an entire hour instructing the jury. The judge instructed the jury to weigh all characters involved, victim, accused, and witnesses. He instructed that the prostitutes were not to be believed unless corroborated by respectable individuals. He went as far as to try to establish an alibi for Robinson in respect to visiting the brothel on the night of the murder. If the jury felt Robinson’s guilt was beyond doubt, then to convict him; if not acquit.

After Michael Brown was killed by Darren Wilson the tension blew up into a riot. The events received considerable attention in the U.S. and elsewhere, attracted protesters from outside the region, and generated a vigorous debate about the relationship between law enforcement and African Americans as well as created a national dialogue about police use of force doctrine in Missouri and nationwide. The court case that followed the shooting was led by Robert McCulloch in a highly unusual process. Instead of conducting an investigation and gathering information the prosecutor, Robert McCulloch left jurors to wade through mass amounts of information to determine the outcome. (Placeholder cite) His office left no recommendation as to whether or not Darren Wilson should be indicted or not. The unfair treatment discussed just is not in this one area there are hundreds of these communities being treated just as unfair as the Ferguson community. Those communities should band together and protest for a change so everybody in the United States can be treated equally. All of these issues matter and are very important. People in our country no matter what race, religion, or sexuality should be treated as equals. Everybody should protest together for a change, a change for everybody to have the same rights as the common white man. This is an issue everybody in our

In Ozark, Missouri on Monday, June 16th, a 911 call was made about a fire. When officials arrived to the scene, the Clemons family were not present. During the same day, Arron Clemons (left) called 911 saying he was in that fire, where he was then taken to a hospital. While he was there, a statement was made to the police saying that “he had tied up his wife and set fire to the house after she died,” as well as saying he "taped his wife's whole body to a pole by wrapping her around her feet, knees, butt, jaw and head with boxing tape in the basement.” On Tuesday, June 17th, Bailey Clemons (right) was found in the burned remains of the house with a sock in her mouth and a belt wrapped around her neck, as well as being found near a pole with

One of the men that were accused was blind and the other couldn’t walk without assistance. Regardless 3 days later the 8 of the 9 men were sentenced to death even though the witnesses all felt that the white women were lying. This trial was appealed and put into the Supreme Court because the defendants were not supplied with sufficient lawyers.

Similar to how the accused is innocent until proven guilty, the rule states that the accused is assumed sane “unless the defense proved at the time of committing the act, the accused was laboring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing or, if he did know it, that he did not know what he was doing was wrong" (Francone). This rule is now a standard in the United Kingdom and in almost half the states in America. The next test is the Model Penal Code, which states that “a criminal defendant must be found not guilty by reason of insanity if he is diagnosed with a relevant mental defect” (FindLaw). The mental defects could range anywhere from severe mental retardation to schizophrenia. The test was adopted in the 1970s, but it quickly became unfavorable after John Hinckley Jr. tried to assassinate President Reagan in 1981 and was found not guilty by reason of insanity because of the test’s loose rules. Soon after, the federal government went back to using the M’Naghten Rule because it was

This rule focuses on cognition, which alone is not enough to determine whether someone is mentally disabled. The M'Naghten rule remained the definition of the insanity defense up until 1954.