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Public Opinion In Inherit The Wind

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The public can influence a judge's ruling before ultimately backtracking. There have been many times where people can influence the result of a court case. Throughout time, it has been shown the court of law will have more impact than the court of public opinion. However, as shown through Inherit the Wind and modern day events, the court of public opinion could still influence the final say. The court of law has more impact on the outcome of court cases because they have more power over the public. This can be seen in Inherit the Wind when the jury has found Cates guilty and the public had no influence on the outcome. “The jury’s decision is unanimous. Bertram Cates is found guilty as charged,” (Lawrence and Lee 113). This shows how even …show more content…

This can be shown in Inherit the Wind, when Brady is giving his speech after Cates is found guilty and Brady starts to notice that the audience is not paying attention to him and have lost interest. “‘And here, here in this courtroom, we have seen vindicated’ — a few people leave. He watches them desperately, out of the corner of his eye,” (Lawrence and Lee 119). This scene shows how Brady becomes embarrassed that no one is listening to him and public opinion influences the outcome of the trial. At the end of this trial Brady can not handle the rejection and discomfort the audience shows him and he ends up fainting and eventually dying. This scene shows that though the court of law sees Cates as guilty, publicly influenced Brady’s thoughts and showed him his final position. Public opinion influencing the court of law can also be seen in the real world in the 2006 Duke Lacrosse case. The 2006 Duke Lacrosse case was when three Duke Lacrosse players were arrested for a false report of them sexually assaulting another student at a party. They offered to let them take their DNA and take lie detector tests, and they took their DNA but denied them taking a lie detector test. They also had photo proof that the accuser was already injured before coming to the party. Even though their DNA did not match up with the evidence the police had, the prosecutor was being biased and arrested them anyway. In an article written by Ciesielka, he says

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