Salem Witch Trial Research Paper

Through history, many people were accused of crimes and sins that they did not commit. All the way back to the 1600’s, in Salem Massachusetts, 20 innocent civilians were killed for the false accusations of witchcraft. Although there was no evidence of any actual witches and it was all pure speculation, they were still labeled as guilty. Even when the accusers had figured out that they were actually innocent, they ultimately decided to execute them anyways to save their reputation. False accusations still happen to this day as in 2001, from Kansas city, Missouri, inmate Joseph Amrine was incarcerated for burglary and robbery and while in prison, he was sentenced to death for a crime that he did not commit. Similar to the Salem Witch Trials,

At the age of 20, Amrine was incarcerated at Potosi Correctional Center in Cole County, Missouri. He had been taken there for burglary and had previously been to another prison in Jefferson City, Missouri, for robbery. He was caught with knives in the Jefferson City prison and is known by the correctional officers as uncooperative and aggressive in both prisons. Soon after he was imprisoned in Potosi Correctional Center, he was convicted of the murder of inmate Gary Barber and was sentenced to death. According the Inmate Kevin Dean, Barber had been taking advantage of other prisoners and had even raped some of them. According to several sources, Barber and Terry Russell, another prisoner in the facility, had gotten into a fight and were then held in solitary confinement. Originally, Russell was arrested for the murder of Barber and to get his name in the clear, he decided to mention Amrine’s name who was playing poker at the time of the incident. Russell had stated that Barber had gotten drunk one night and proceed to take advantage of Amrine sexually. Because of that incident, Russell then claims that Amrine got extremely mad to the point that he went and stabbed Barber with an icepick multiple times then proceed to brag about him killing to Russell. Even though there was evidence that Amrine was not the murder, according to Amrine and others, the guards did not like Amrine very much and

Although the witnesses admitted to lying, Judge Fernando Gaitan ignored their confessions and proceed to go on with the sentencing because the third eye witness did not confess. When the third witness did confess, the United States Courts of Appeal demanded that Judge Fernando Gaitan reconsider his ideas. Even with the third witness confessing, Gaitan claimed the confession to untrustworthy. November 2001, an execution date for Amrine was set. The execution date was then delayed because of a documentary that had been made about Amrine’s case. This documentary gained a lot of attention and another hearing was held to reconsider the situation. April 29th, 2003, the Missouri Supreme Court, in a 4-3 decision, decided that Amrine had shown “clear and convincing evidence of actual innocence that undermines confidence.” (Alexandria). Soon after the decision that Amrine had shown “clear and convincing evidence”, the Missouri Supreme Court, demanded that they were to either release Amrine or give him another trial. On July 28th, 2003, Amrine was not given a new trial but was instead