The Nightmare of the West Memphis Three

The Case of the West Memphis Three involves the three teenage boys accused and convicted of murdering Michael Moore, Stevie Branch, and Christopher Byers in West Memphis, Arkansas on May 5th, 1993. The investigation, trial, and appeals that followed would put the Arkansas criminal justice system under scrutiny for their actions. The West Memphis Police Department arrested and charged Jason Baldwin, Damien Echols, and Jessie Misskelly, Jr. with the three boy’s murders. The entire case was under the constant watch of the media and brought a great deal of attention to the actions and conduct of the West Memphis Police Department, as well as the Arkansas criminal justice system. Many outsiders got involved with the West Memphis Three case. Among these outsiders were famous musicians Eddy Vedder, lead singer of Pearl Jam and Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks, famous actors including Johnny Depp, and superstar director Peter Jackson. These celebrities helped to raise awareness of the case as well as to help raise money for the West Memphis three to obtain appropriate post-conviction representation and unbiased forensic testing and analysis in the hopes of exonerating them of their convictions. While the new forensic evidence (and the new testing and expert analysis of the original evidence) ultimately helped the West Memphis Three become free men again, the question still remains as to who really murdered those three boys on May 5th, 1993 in West Memphis, Arkansas. Because the

One of these incidents occurs when Marjane is in art school. When the students were told that they needed to wear longer headscarves, Satrapi immediately responded that “as a student of art…I need to move freely to be able to draw.” She further questions “why is it that I, as a woman, am expected to feel nothing when watching these men with their clothes sculpted on but they, as men, can get excited by two-inches less of my head scarf?” here Marjane questions the restrictiveness of the veil and comments on the injustice in Muslim society and the gender inequality. The veil represent the repressions and the gender injustices in Iran. By revolting against the veil Marjane is able to protest the repressions. On hearing Marjanes complaint, the school administrators asked Satrapi to design her own veil. Marjane accepts this offer while still in the confines of the veil. Marjane designs the veil to suit the needs of the students and

Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi is a graphic novel that provides insight into a young girl living in Iran during the hardship of war. Persepolis takes place during the childhood of Marjane Satrapi. It gives a background of the Islamic Revolution and the war in Iran. Satrapi attempts to guide herself in a corrupted world filled with propaganda. She tries to develop her own morality concerning religion, politics, and humanity. Satrapi was blessed enough to have high class status and parents who had an open mindset about the world around them. Thanks to her slightly alternative lifestyle, she is able to reconstruct gender norms that society has set by depicting the different ways women resist them. “Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving? Anthropological Reflections on Cultural Relativism and Its Others” by Lila Abu-Lughod is an essay detailing the misconceptions surrounding the veil. Through this essay we can see how colonial feminism, the form of feminism in which western women push for a western way of living on their third world counterparts, has shined a negative light on cultures all around the world - particularly Islamic women. The essay shows how women who don’t conform to American societal structures are labeled as women who urgently require saving. Through this essay one can develop a thorough understanding of the veil itself and the many representations it holds to different entities. Although in Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood Satrapi

One of the most controversial topics concerning Muslim women’s rights is the idea of the veil. It is believed by some Muslims that the veil is an Islamic obligation that all Muslim women must adhere to. But nowadays, the veil can have different meanings that are not necessarily religious. In her article “Reinventing the Veil,” Leila Ahmed addresses some of the different meanings that the veil can have. Marjane Satrapi explores one of those meanings in her animated autobiography Persepolis (2008). In Persepolis, Marjane tells the story of her rebellion against the Iranian Islamist regime that takes over Iran, oppresses women, and forces them to wear the veil. What was interesting to me was seeing Marjane wear the veil without being oppressed, although she does not believe in it, and is being forced to wear it. In Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi escapes being a subject to the Iranian Islamist ideology by establishing her individual identity through transforming the veil from a means of oppression into a means of feminist rebellion.

The scales of justice are rarely in balance. In “West of Memphis”, imperfection within the criminal justice system is used as a central theme. Imperfection can be defined as an unsatisfactory feature. Similarly, town fervor, which puts additional pressure on investigators to swiftly come up with answers, bible-belt politics, namely, devil worshiping, celebrity clout, which leads to freedom from prison, as result, show imperfection in the criminal justice system as a central theme.

There are many prisoners sitting in prison today for a crime not committed by them. Sometimes, the law rushes into convictions before getting complete facts. Maybe a small town needed revenge which could lead to a wrong conviction. It could be from “ignorance of the law”. Most are not aware of their rights and what could be said that might falsely incriminate a person. There are also the forced confessions by police who threaten or use scare tactics to get a false confession. Most wrongfully convicted are sitting in prison for witness misidentification. Police not taking the time to get actual proof of guilt have ruined innocent lives. Is it fair for a person to serve time for a crime they did not commit? Why is a person still serving

During the early nineteen hundreds many people especially in the south were often convicted of crimes for no other reason than their skin color and contrary to many ideas about our court system, we have not always been the most honest and unbiased people. One prime example of this is the case of the Scottsboro Boys and how they were accused of rape and had to go to court numerous times, almost everytime ending in the death sentence. The evidence in the case clearly points towards the innocence of the Scottsboro boys, evidence such as unclear stories from the girls, lack of bruises and marks indicating assault as well as a previous history of prostitution from both of the girls. This evidence helps to prove that Charles Weems and the Scottsboro boys were innocent and wrongly accused and convicted.

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

the prisoners were lucky enough to escape the being lynched when they were moved into Scottsboro. In this trial, nine young, black boys were charged with the rape of two white girls while on a train. This case was a major source of controversy in the 1930’s. “Despite testimony by doctors who had examined the women that no rape had occurred, the all- white jury convicted the nine, and all but the youngest, who was 12 years old were sentenced to death” (“Scottsboro”). The boys’ lawyer, Samuel Leibowitz, did not even get assigned to the case until the first day of the trial. “If he could show a jury that these nine boys were innocent, as the record indicated, the jury would surely free them. To Leibowitz, that was simple!” (Chalmers 35). However, it was not that simple. Many white citizens would not change their minds about

The murders and trial caused such an interest for the public because of the injustice the three teenagers were given simply because they were different. Perhaps many could relate to that feeling and were able to relate to the boys. Innocent young men who had been sent to jail for not being like everyone else. This spawned documentarians to do their own research to set them

The specific topic of this book is the oppression of women. Its overall purpose is to understand the women behind the veils and why the Muslim women take up the hijab. The purpose is also to show how

The first Paradise Lost documentary offers a fairly unbiased perspective on the case, as well as the suspects and West Memphis, with its purpose seeming to simply educate viewers on such a complex investigation. However, subtle questions about whether the West Memphis Three truly committed the crime interweave the main documentary. Berlinger and Sinofsky reveal a very open case and leave many issues unanswered for audiences, which ultimately led to the film’s success. In a final credit scene, we are told, “Damien was sentenced to die by lethal injection. Jason Baldwin was sentenced to life without parole. Misskelley continues to serve his life plus forty years. They are all appealing their convictions”. This title credit being the final screen audiences see amplifies its importance and exudes a lasting impression on viewers, knowing that the convictions are being appealed against suggests that the court case is far from over.

The author, Naheed Mustafa, starts out with two points of view others have of her, a “Muslim terrorist” or an oppressed woman (Mustafa 1). However, with these two points of view, Mustafa is suggesting that people only view her in these two ways because in their eyes a Muslim woman cannot be more. Then she introduces the hijab, a scarf which covers her neck, head, and throat, but explains that young Muslim women like her are “reinterpreting” the purpose of the hijab: give women absolute control over their bodies. According to Mustafa, the hijab does not only give women absolute control but freedom. Yet, others do not understand this concept or why a young woman who was born in a land that is free and full of opportunities like North America

In the film, “Under One Sky: Arab Women Talk about the Hijab”, the women in the collective address the tension between religious obligations and feminist aspirations by debunking the stereotype of hijabs in relation with the Islam faith. They believe that just because a Muslim women wears a hijab or face covering, it does not mean that they are oppressed by the religion. It is when the women are forced, by the people and culture of that religion. Ultimately, they state that meaning of being a woman in Muslim, in their eyes is one who embraces their religion by wearing a hijab with confidence and respect for their religion. I believe their resolution was satisfactory because they showed that Islam is not a religion where women are completely

Now I’m going to be talking about my second article and in this paragraph discusses about the taboo and the negative stereotype that western society has on Islamic women and how they are treated in their society. The perceptions we have developed is routed from the rules and regulations places on women in Afghanistan among Taliban. This restriction that western society sees it as is primarily focused on the dress code placed on women for example required to wear a burqa and preventing them from going to school. To westernized culture, this restriction is seen as a discouragement to women and shows signs of oppression on