There are many contributing factors that lead the police to arrest and eventually prosecuting Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley. The main factor that effected lead the public to convicting Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley of the murder of those three boys was fear. After the crime was committed, many people were in fear that there was a psychopath out on the loose that might continue to murder with this thought in the public’s mind they pressured the police to find the killer as soon as possible so that they can feel safe. This led the police to apprehend Jessie and coax a confession out of him that should have not been the case. If the police did not find the killer or a suspect in a reasonable amount of time, they would be called incompetent or try to fire people within the police department like Detective Gitchell, this forced the police to find somebody and name them as the suspect. Once a suspect was named in the case, the public further pressured the police to make sure the suspects were convicted just for the public’s need of justice. If the police instead not had the pressure to find the killer they would have had enough time and resources to gather evidence and get the correct killer. The public does have the right to demand justice for a crime but in this case it …show more content…
The media heavily influenced the public perception of the suspects in many ways, one way was by influencing potentially the potential jurors of the case with commentary of satanic cults. In Paradise Lost 3, there was a small portion talking about a juror that had the belief that these kids were guilty of the crime of killing the small boys before even seeing the evidence at the trial. It would be safe to assume that this juror was heavily influenced by what he saw on the news and the rumors caused by the