ipl-logo

Examples Of Discrimination In To Kill A Mockingbird

741 Words3 Pages

Discrimination
The legal system, prior to the 1970’s, was flawed. The American court system is meant to be the epitome of equal treatment and justice. However, for black Americans, being put on trial was inevitably going to be an undesirable and unjust outcome. This is partially due to the fact that juries consisted of white men. In the award winning novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Tom Robinson is incapable of committing the crime he was accused of, but he is found guilty. The trial of Ed Johnson in 1906 and the trial of Lena Baker in 1945 are also examples of innocent black Americans being sentenced to death for their wrongful accusations.
Ed Johnson was a black American citizen from Tennessee. In 1906, he was accused of raping a white woman. …show more content…

Lena is the first and only woman to be executed by electrocution. She was convicted for the murder of E.B. Knight, a white man who she was caring for after he broke his leg. Knight kidnapped Lena and kept her as a sex slave. She managed to resist and she shot and killed him. She received a court appointed lawyer, who did not call any witnesses for the defense of Lena. While she pleaded self defense, the all white jury convicted her of murder and sentenced her to execution. This trial was unjust especially because Georgia has self-defense laws that permit all citizens to defend themselves when …show more content…

In 1935, the case of Norris v. Alabama, the Supreme Court condemned state and local officials in the south for excluding black Americans from juries. This was in response to the Scottsboro Boys, a group of nine innocent black men charged with raping two white women in Alabama. Evidence proved their innocence, but the all white jury convicted them nonetheless. The results of Norris v. Alabama led to the Supreme Court intervening and overturning several cases over the next 12 years. In addition, the juror commissioner was reprimanded for excluding black Americans. Unfortunately, racial discrimination regarding the jury did not end. Jurisdictions still excluded black Americans from juries using excuses such as that they were not educated enough. Lawyers also would eliminate black Americans from juries using peremptory strikes, a right that lawyers possess to remove a juror without a logical reason. Norris v. Alabama laid the groundwork for Batson v.

Show More
Related

Could Atticus Win The Scottsboro Trial Persuasive Essay

386 Words | 2 Pages

When a case is with a black and a white the white always wins. Black men from the Scottsboro Trials in 1931-1948 were sent to prison and executed because they were accused of rape. “Eight of the nine men got executed and the ninth could not because he was to young” (The Scottsboro Trials, The First Trial).

Read More

Summary Of Batson Vs Kentucky

560 Words | 3 Pages

Facts surrounding the case The case of Batson v. Kentucky was a case about an African American man found guilty of burglary. The jury for his case was all white. He subsequently appealed his conviction based on an all white jury. The judge for the case dismissed several potential jurors for legitimate reasons, but Batson contended that the black jurors were dismissed to weigh the odds of a conviction against Batson with an all white jury.

Read More

Snyder V. Georgia Supreme Court Case For The Murder Of Queen White

1109 Words | 5 Pages

Louisiana is another precedent for this current case. Allen Snyder, a black man, was on trial for capital murder in a Louisiana court. The prosecutor used peremptory strikes to dismiss the five African Americans on the jury panel. This resulted in Snyder being tried by an all white jury. The court found him guilty and sentenced the death penalty.

Read More

Hernandez Vs State Of Texas Summary

806 Words | 4 Pages

It is noted that for more than 20 years, the jury in Texas was only made of the whites who gave little chance for people of other races to receive fair treatment and justice in case they were charged. Additionally, despite the enactment of the Fourteenth Amendment which allowed freedom and fair treatment for everyone, the other races who were not white did not receive the fair treatment and equality as they deserved.

Read More

Summary Of The Stinney Case

458 Words | 2 Pages

Stinney was electrocuted in the electric chair. This was legal at that time to execute minors like Stinney. Death of electrocution is now determined to be “cruel and unusual punishment .” Stinney was only 14 years old and weighed 95 lbs which made him the youngest to ever be executed in the 20th century. The straps to the execution chair were too big for Stinney’s gaunt arms.

Read More

To Kill A Mockingbird Quotes Analysis

897 Words | 4 Pages

Not all race in the 20th century were treated equal some examples from To Kill A Mockingbird are Tom Robinson’s case, Scout Finch, and a bias court system. Scout may not be a lover but she is a fighter. She doesn’t let people walk all over her. Like when Dill didn’t show her attention Scout beat him

Read More

Similarities Between Rodney King And To Kill A Mockingbird

894 Words | 4 Pages

Despite these facts, and the fact that MayElla Ewell basically admitted to perjury, Tom Robinson was still convicted and later murdered brutally in the same way that Rodney King was beat brutally. Ultimately, black-white trials were a series of back and forth situations, he-said-she-said encounters, whose word is more valuable than the other paradoxes. And whether or not an African American individual being tried with a crime was actually guilty, if they were put up against a white person, their word would automatically be unavailing (or futile) in comparison. No matter what they said, they were still black and that was enough for most juries to

Read More

Blockbuster Vs To Kill A Mockingbird

702 Words | 3 Pages

United States case and the Robinson v. Alabama case from To Kill A Mockingbird were very similar. Both Criminals received a verdict that they should not have. In the Robinson Case, Tom Robinson was charged with raping Mayella Ewell. He was found guilty and sentenced to death. In this case the jury was biased, instead of seeing a prosecution and a defence,they saw a black man and a white woman.

Read More

What Are The Similarities Between The Scottsboro Boys Trial And To Kill A Mockingbird

1035 Words | 5 Pages

The Scottsboro Boys Trial certainly shows dramatic flaws in the United States legal since, besides the fact it took place in the peak of prejudice across the United States. In the year 1931, which was around the same time period that To Kill A Mockingbird took place, nine black teenagers were accused of beating up other white boys on the train, and most importantly blamed for the false rape of Victoria Price and Ruby Bates (Sorenson 5). There was no medical evidence as to whether the girls were raped or boys beaten, just the word of a white person being known as superior to a black person’s just like the trial of Tom Robinson (20). In the end of the three trials that went to the United States Supreme Court, the boys received a quick, speedy, unfair trial with unjust defense lawyers and the punishments that ranged from 75 years in prison to death (25). One boy was shot in prison when attempting to make an escape, which is almost identical to the circumstance of when Tom Robinson is shot to death when attempting to escape prison (48).

Read More

Essay On Tom Robinson Trial To Kill A Mockingbird

885 Words | 4 Pages

In the novel To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, the story is set in the 1900’s, Maycomb, Alabama. During this time there was racism in the south and segregation which separated the whites and blacks from everything. There was also the Great Depression, the whole country was poor and people living in the country had to trade and do other jobs for people to either pay them off or to buy something from them. The trial in this book is about Mayella and Bob Ewell, two white people, claiming and arguing that Tom Robinson, a black person, raped Mayella Ewell. This trial is really important because at that time in the south, white people took advantage of black people and their kindness and thought they would take that or shut up just because they were black.

Read More

Biased Juries In To Kill A Mockingbird By Harper Lee

975 Words | 4 Pages

Similarly, in the Tom Robinson trial racism is relevant, and Reverend Sykes, a prominent man in the Black community comments on the issue. He tells the children he “[has never] seen any jury decide in favor of a [Black] man over a white man …”, proving the fact that juries are racially biased (Lee 238). He explains to Jem how a jury can decide a man’s fate based on the color of his skin. Not whether he is truly innocent or not, but just because he isn’t like them. Juries being racially biased is an unfair way to decide a trial and has landed many Black men in

Read More

Injustice: The Scottsboro Case

1657 Words | 7 Pages

Therefore, if one was colored the trial wouldn’t be in their favor. The trials either would end in the conviction of death or the least likely, time in prison. In the Scottsboro Case and the book To Kill a Mockingbird the victims lived hard lives and were influenced by others. Aside from that the physical evidence was weak as well as the testimonies. The Scottsboro Case was the only crime in American History to produce many trials, convictions, and retrials as the alleged rape of two white girls by nine black teenagers on March 25, 1931 (Linder).

Read More

The Justice System In Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird

833 Words | 4 Pages

The justice system has always been the heart of America. But like this country, it has many faults. Prejudice has played a major role in the shaping of this system. In the 1930’s the way a courtroom was set up was completely different from how it looks to day. In the book To Kill A MockingBird, Harper Lee shows just how different it is.

Read More

Scottsboro Boys Trial

1086 Words | 5 Pages

Atticus knew that the trial would end with Robinson declared guilty because of “Maycomb’s usual disease” of racism (Lee 117). Color, however, should not be a factor when deciding the innocence of a person. In conclusion, the Scottsboro

Read More

To What Extent Did Tom Robinson Have A Fair Trial In To Kill A Mockingbird

866 Words | 4 Pages

In the South of the United States in the 1930´s, the justice system was very unfair towards colored people. Colored people that were sent to court could not receive a fair trial because of the prejudice and racism from the jury. This happened all the time, especially in Maycomb Alabama. In the book To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, a colored man named Tom Robinson was convicted of assaulting a white woman just because of the color of his skin. Tom Robinson should have been found not guilty for many reasons.

Read More

More about Examples Of Discrimination In To Kill A Mockingbird

Related Topics

Open Document