On May 5th, 1993 in West Memphis, Arkansas the West Memphis Police Department received a frantic phone call. Three eight-year-old boys had gone missing. The following day, May 6th, Christopher Byers, Michael Moore and Stephen Branch were found in a ditch in the woods brutally beaten and savagely murdered. With little to no evidence to be found, and only hints of some satanic cult influence, the police convicted three “strange” and “outcast” teenage boys, of the murder. These three teenagers were Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jesse Misskelley Jr.
Many controversies occurred in the town. Evidence was small and the debate of whether the teens were innocent or guilty was very unclear. In early 1994, all three teenagers were found guilty and put in jail for life. Several books have been written about the case. A lot of people have found that it was unfair for these boys to be convicted since there was said to be no hard evidence. Two books in particular explore deep into the case. They both consider people involved, and the unfairness of the entire case. Each author has an opinion as well.
The first book, “Devil’s Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three”, was written by Mara Leveritt. This book tells the story of The West Memphis Three from the time of the murders, in which it is unknown of who committed them, to when three innocent teenagers were sentenced to life in prison. The book begins on May 5th, 1993, the night when a phone call was made to the West Memphis Police department about three eight-year-old boys going missing. A search party was set up immediately and was made up of police officers and many people of the community of West Memphis, Arkansas. Hours passed and nothing was found.
The following day, May 6t...
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...ks, “Devil’s Knot” and “Untying the Knot”, and seeing both points of view from each author, Leveritt and Day, it is clear that John Mark Byers and the West Memphis Three are both innocent. “Devil’s Knot,” exposed the faults in the convictions of Damien, Jason and Jesse. It also demonstrated the truth about police coercion. “Untying the Knot,” revealed the harsh influence of the media and how that influence can faultily accuse someone based on no evidence. Hence, there is no hard evidence or even any evidence at all linking Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jesse Misskelley Jr. to the crimes. It is also the same for John Mark Byers. To this day, there is still a malicious killer somewhere walking the streets as a free human being, and whether he will be found or not is impossible to predict. In the end, The West Memphis Three earned their freedom and so did Mr. Byers.
Both of the boys accusations were very severe. Steve Harmon was being tried for bring an accomplice in a murder/robbery in a convenience store. Even though there's not much information on the arrest itself it was hinted that he was found around the neighborhood and was trying to film for his class when he was arrested .Whereas, Brenton Butler was tried as the killer of an older tourist that was white. Butler was outside by his house when police spotted him, they took him in for questioning just because the description of the murderer was that he was African American. Once arrested they were both introduced to the people who could change their fate in the courtroom.
On August 23, 1927, Nicola Sacco and Barolomeo Vanzetti were executed in one of the most controversial legal cases in American history. Two men were shot and robbed in Braintree, MA, and two poor Italian immigrants were arrested for the crime. Although neither Sacco nor Vanzetti had criminal records, they both had pistols on them at the time, and followed a violent anarchist leader. Following their arrest, the seven-year case on the crime would drive national and international protests demanding their exoneration. There were numerous elements in the trial that influenced the guilty verdicts for the men including, but not limited to, weak evidence. The Sacco Vanzetti trial displays the social injustices and prejudice in American society during the time. It is evident that even though they are innocent, the court used Sacco and Vanzetti as scapegoats in this crime because of their beliefs and background.
...lice or lawyers used their integrity. The police skirted around the law and use evidence that the witnesses said was not correct. They had a description of the suspect that did not match Bloodsworth but, they went after him as well. They also used eyewitness testimony that could have been contaminated.
...propelled the case further. Rich talks about how Peter Jackson, a famous director money was used in the DNA test that secured evidence that the Memphis Three were not involved in the murders of the little boys. Rich also highlights the name-dropping used by one of the victims in his book. The book itself was another form of gaining publicity. By writing the memoir, Echols was profiting from his understandable horrific experience. This speaks to the commodification and commercialization of experience exemplified in society today through Internet celebrities and reality television shows.
Billy Joel once sang, “Only the good die young”. In life, it is true, the young and innocent seem to touch more lives around us than anyone else. In the Casey Anthony trial, Anthony was a suspect in the murder of her daughter Caylee. Caylee’s life shouldn’t be counted in years, it should be counted by how many lives she affected, the love she has gained, and the support the country has given her to find out what really happened. In the play, Twelve Angry Men, a boy killed his father; however, both cases were challenged by the obvious and the abstruse evidence. Large cities towards the east coast, in 1982, Twelve Angry Men, and 2008, Casey Anthony Trial, affiliated with two major trials able to modify the lives of the living and the dead. For that reason, during the Casey Anthony case, jurors were conflicted throughout the trial.
The book itself was hard to follow. It is not the type of book I would normally choose to read. There was not much character development and way too many slimy characters too keep track of. The crimes were plentiful and the relationships between the characters were often unclear. The book seemed to jump around to numerous detailed incidents and crimes that occurred making it difficult to tie them together. The author of the book was a magazine journalist, so this type of writing was out of his comfort zone. Nevertheless, Brown must be given a great deal of credit for putting in years of dedication to investigate this story that police overlooked and possibly participated in. This book needed to be written because, without it, more women could have been murdered. Brown first published an article on the case before witting the book, the day the article came out the body of the last victim was
Michael Kirk and Peter J. Boyer. (2000, January 18). The killer at Thurston High. May 5, 2010, by FrontLine: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/kinkel/etc/script.html
Finally, the argument about the glasses swayed everyone just enough to withdraw the guilty verdict and set the boy free. My next claim is in regards to the “old man” juror. If it were not for him voting not guilty the second time, the boy would have been found guilty. He said the reason he voted that way was because of one juror standing up to the other 11 jurors. He felt that everyone needed to hear all of the arguments because they were dealing with a man’s life.
“The trial was brought to a speedy conclusion. Not only did Judge Evans find the twelve guilty, fine them $100 each, and committed them to jail, but five people in the courtroom who had served as witnesses for the defense arrested. […] The police were then instructed to transfer the seventeen prisoners that night to the county jail”(30).
Three weeks after Emmett was murdered, a trial was held for Roy Bryans and Milam. “On September 23, the all-wh...
In 1989 Westley Allan Dodd was hanged to death for sexually assaulting and heinously murdering three defenseless children; all boys aged 11, 10, and 4. The details and events from his shocking diaries portray horrific accounts of the murders he committed and those he planned to enact had he not been finally brought to justice by one of his potential victims.
To understand the why these youths were killed in Alabama, one must come to understand the events that led up to their death. Birmingham, Alabama was a very unstable area during the 1960’s, and this instability stemmed from pure racial hatred brewing within this city. Bombings started as early as the 1940’s and gave a section of Birmingham the nickname dynamite alley. The resulting civil unrest caused a man to step forward to stop it, a man by the name of Fred Shuttlesworth. Mr. Shuttlesworth was a part of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and he organized many events and demonstrations but the only result that came from them was more violence.
Johnson, Jason B. “ Slain Teen’s family: Cops eyeing 7-10 suspects.” Boston Herald. 7 ,April 1995
In 1993, Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, aged ten at the time, abused and murdered a two-year-old boy, James Bulger. There was media uproar about the case with the two boys being described as ‘evil’, ‘monsters’ and ‘freaks’ in the media (Franklin & Horwath 1998). There were many references to evil in the newspapers; with the telegraph stating that Thompson’s nickname was ‘Damien’ (from The Omen) and declaring that Venables birth date was Friday the 13th. The majority of society was united in the belief that these two boys were the epitome of evil and it was the media that nurtured this belief. ‘Newspaper reports were unequivocal in their denunciations of Thompson and Venables as inherently evil, prompted perhaps initially by Justice Morland’s description of the murder as an act of unparalleled ev...
On the evening of May 5, 1993, three boys from West Memphis, Arkansas, were last seen riding their bikes together. In the early evening, Chris Byers' stepfather, John Mark Byers, reported that his stepson had not come home and he was becoming worried. The police were also notified of two other boys who had been with Chris and were considered missing, Michael Moore, and Stevie Branch. The police and the parents of the missing children searched the neighborhood unsuccessfully until 3AM the next morning. The bodies of the three eight year old boys were discovered in a wooded area in Robin Hood Hills the next day at 1:30 PM. The boys had been hog-tied and severely beaten. Their naked bodies were located in a shallow creek in an isolated patch of woods behind the Blue Beacon truck wash. However, the question that remains until this day is whether justice was served in this case. Perhaps you are not familiar with the West Memphis Three, otherwise known as the Robin Hood Hill Murders. Most people would not of heard of this case unless they were citizens of the small town; however, HBO produced a documentary, "Paradise Lost," which graphically showed this case in a different light. This Peabody Award winning documentary brought the story of this crime and its aftermath into the national spotlight in 1996. The implication it left was that satanic panic, public hysteria and media sensationalism was responsible for the convictions in the case, not solid evidence. This is a shattering account of what a fundamentalist community in the south can accomplish toward the blatant destruction of American justice.