“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” Franklin D. Roosevelt. Fear is a enormous part of human life. We fear the unknown, the strange, and the different. We fear people that don’t fit the social norm. Fear can drive society to make irrational decisions that can cause life altering changes. These life altering changes are prevalent in The West Memphis Three Case and in the Salem Witch Trials. The West Memphis Three Case was a case about three teenage boys who were suspected of murdering three eight-year-old boys. Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley, and Jason Baldwin were the three teenagers that were unlawfully convicted of the crime. Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley, and Jason Baldwin didn’t fit the norm society had set. They dressed in all black, listened to heavy metal music, and read books that most kids didn’t. The boy’s family’s didn’t have tons of money and had been in trouble before. Many people felt that the police needed someone to blame, so they pick the three kids that everyone thought were a little weird and different. Because they didn’t fit the norm, everyone thought they must have been guilty. Jessie Misskelley was questioned for 10 hours about the crime. The investigators gave Jessie …show more content…
In the case of Tituba, she confessed to being a witch, knowing that if she didn’t confess she was going to be hung. Many others, not just Tituba, confessed to the crime. A few others, chose to died rather than lie and confess to the crime; they rathered died then confessed because they saw lying as a sin in the eyes of god. The court thought if one would confess to the crime that they were saved by the Lord because they confessed their sin. If one would have been accused of witchcraft and didn’t admit to the crime they would have been hung. The people that confessed were afraid of dying. All of the confessions were false because they knew what would happen if they