Summary Of Walter Dean Myers 'Monster'

Being on trial can be terrifying. However, being on trial for felony murder would be even worse and the weight on your shoulders would be prodigious. In the book Monster, by Walter Dean Myers, Steve Harmon, a sixteen-year-old black boy, is on trial for felony murder in the city of Harlem, New York. Steve is most likely innocent but in the grand scheme of things, that is not how it looks to be for Steve. It looks as if Steve will be spending his whole life behind bars. Steve’s lawyer, Miss O’Brien, must prove Steve’s innocence to a biased jury so that Steve will not have to have his whole life ruined. Because Steve is a black juvenile on trial for felony murder and even though is innocent, Steve and his lawyer must prove him innocent in the

Nesbitt, the owner of the drugstore. Therefore, Steve and his lawyer must fight even harder against the Harlem judicial system in order prove Steve not guilty. One of the only things Steve did related to the robbery was talk to James King, a participant of the robbery, about basketball. Steve’s lawyer, O’Brien, is trying to say that just because Steve talked to King doesn’t mean he is guilty. She attempts to prove this by saying: “Without a plan that says Steve entered an agreement with the robbers, what would he be charged with? Talking about basketball in the streets of Harlem? Does that now constitute a crime? Not in any law journal that I know about” (246). Be that as it may, the distance between Steve and King was already established prior to this moment. However, O’Brien attempts to prove Steve innocent by saying the only thing Steve did was, in correlation the robbery, talk to King about basketball. The instant Steve is put on trial, the reader to sees there was already some sort of bias against Steve, therefore, making it harder for O’Brien to win the

Since he is already viewed upon as guilty of felony murder by others, Steve and O’Brien must distance themselves from King. If they do not, Steve will appear as if he has a close relationship with James King therefore making it look even more clear that Steve took part in the robbery and thus not benefiting Steve’s cause. Earlier in the story, from the text, the reader can clearly identify this problem of distance between Steve and King. Therefore, O’Brien tells Steve that he needs to find a way to minimize the relationship between him and King as much as possible. Steve recalls this from his notes as he writes: “Miss O’Brien was mad today. She said that Petrocelli was using a cheap trick. The judge said he was calling a half-day session because he needed to hear pleas in another case. O’Brien said that Petrocelli wanted to leave as bad an image in the mind of the jury as she could” (127). That being said, Steve talked to King regardless and no matter what topic was discussed between the two of them or how brief the conversation was, Petrocelli wants the jury to see this relationship between Steve and King and leave that simmering in the minds of the jury. However, going back to the point that there most likely were biased people, Steve will most likely be looked upon negatively. Lots of things that Petrocelli said hurt Steve’s cause, thus making it harder for the jury to look at