Danforth Is To Blame In The Crucible By Arthur Miller

Many citizens desire their judicature to be unbiased, thorough, and fair when deciding the outcomes of trials in court. In the exceedingly famous work, The Crucible, Arthur Miller portrays a story in which many people are accused, punished, and even sentenced to death in court for witchcraft and having relationships with the devil. Most of these accused people were known to be undoubtedly innocent to readers, but the judge of the court, Thomas Danforth, was ruthless in sending them to their punishment and death. Many innocent people such as Rebecca Nurse, John Proctor, Giles Corey were killed because of false accusations. Although Thomas Danforth was a very experienced judge in court, he did not fulfill his job as a judge effectively: He lacked

When Reverend Parris and Reverend Hale requested of Danforth to postpone the hangings of a second group of accused to allow time for their confessions, he refused. Danforth based his decision off of the fact that twelve other had already been hung for the same crime; therefore, he wanted to remain consistent. In this decision Danforth had shown his selfish qualities. He decided to hang the second group of accused persons because he was worried about his reputation. If Danforth would have postponed the hangings, the towns people could view this decision as Danforth admitting he made a mistake when he hung the first twelve people. As he says himself, “Postponement now speaks a floundering on my part.” If Danforth would not have stayed consistent with his decisions to hang, he would be viewed as unsteady with his decisions and would be admitting to have made a mistake with earlier

He picked and chose which pieces of evidence he wanted to believe, and gave the ones he did not a harder chance to be considered. For example, when Abigail Williams accused Elizabeth Proctor of trying to murder her with through voodoo with a poppet, judge Danforth believed her right away. But when Mary Warren testified in court that she had made the poppet in Abby’s presence, Danforth was not as quick to believe her. He went back to the opinion of Abigail who said Mary was lying. Danforth only considered evidence that fit his original viewpoints of the issues. When other information was brought up to contradict his original thoughts, he would not consider the testimonies with equal significance. Also, Danforth refused testimonies that were not written statements. When Giles Corey tells Danforth he has never meant to accuse his wife of being a witch, Danforth refuses to accept Giles's evidence unless it is submitted in “proper affidavit”. Danforth does not consider verbal evidence as significantly as written evidence. Another example of this is when Proctor attempts to falsely confess his account with the devil, but he refuses to sign the court's written confession document. Danforth will not accept or believe Proctor’s confession unless it is written and signed. Danforth’s refusal to accept verbal evidence, and all evidence equally, keeps him