To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, The Twelve Angry men by Reginald Rose and The Scottsboro Trial are all about unfair trials containing discrimination towards different people and people being prejudice .The peoples action towards the defendants affected them for the rest of their life. Many of the people that came into the court brought in their own social problems and that influenced the verdict. To Kill The Mockingbird was about a black guy named Tom Robinson who was accused of raping a young women by the name of Mayella Ewell.
In the court, significant evidence was presented to the juror's that would prove that Tom Robinson was innocent. The evidence showed that a left handed male must have beat Mayella because the bruises were on the right side of her and Tom Robinsons left arm was disabled. Robinson could not have beat Ms. Ewell. Tom Robinson was still convicted and later on was shot at a prison fence while he was trying to run away. The juror's discriminated Mr.
Robinson and was prejudice towards him because all though evidence was presented to them that would prove Tom innocent they ignored it because the guy was black and in the 30's discriminating blacks were heavily favored.The Twelve Angry Men was about a boy who was accused of stabbing his father to death in a argument. In the beginning of the trial all twelve of the juror's voted guilty. Many of the juror's were mean and did not care about the boy's future they just wanted to get the trial over with so the juror's can do what they wanted to do. Later in the case one of the juror's realized they were messing with a boys life and his future was all up to them. So a juror realized that some of the information that a witness brought up had to be false.
So they analyzed the information and came to the conclusion that the boy could not have stabbed his father the way he did because one of the juror's had seen many knife fight's in his backyard and you can not stab someone downward with a switchblade. Also another witness said that the knife that the kid had could be bought anywhere. The juror's discriminated the boy because he lived in the slums , he has a criminal record and he was always fighting with his dad so they just assumed he was the one that killed his dad.The Scottsboro Trial was about 9 black kids that were accused of raping two white women on a train in Alabama in the 1930's.
The two women said that the boys were touching and raping them. All 9 boys were found guilty. The jury was all white men and the boys had no chance of a fair second trial. Later on in the trial Ruby Bates reappears in court and stated that the black men did not rape touch or talk to her or Victoria Price.
Despite the new information the jury still finds Heyward Patterson guilty. The judge orders for a third trial because of the new evidence. Ruby bates refuses to go back to court to testify because of death threats and the verdict of the third trial was guilty. In April of 1935 the supreme court again overturns the verdict because of the violation of civil rights.
During the fourth trial Heyward Patterson is found guilty and sentenced to 75 years in jail. The court releases the remaining 4 boys. By that time the boys have spent 6 years in jail. All the boys were released besides Heyward Patterson. Patterson escapes and goes to Detroit. The jury discriminated the 9 black boys because they were black and they were disliked in the 30's.
Also the jury was consisted of all white men. They had no chance of being set free because they were accused of raping white women.Overall the blacks are treated better now then they were treated back in the 1930's because there are laws that protect them like the civil rights act. Many people stereotype people based on their race and class and this proves that people are still prejudice and it still affects the life's of others that are being judged. Court room decisions are sometimes based on race and class not evidence.
