Plessy V Ferguson Court Case Analysis

Thank you for your consideration, gentlemen of the jury, on this exceedingly significant matter. Gentlemen, why should you, with the responsibility of this man’s fate lying in your hands, imprison and execute him when the law itself from the “knowledge of understanding,” the exact law that you have vowed upon, states that it is a hazardous thing to do? Why should you convict a human being upon misleading evidence which the law itself states is a precarious deed to act upon? Gentlemen of the jury, please reflect upon this, “How do people come up with a date and time to take life from another man?” (Gaines 157). In particular, for a crime that is evident to every individual in this courtroom that the defendant did not commit. How could an individual

with the lack of intelligence, the lack of common sense the defendant has plot a murder and a robbery? It is obvious who the real culprits are. The defendant was not the only man in that store during the time of the murder, but just because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, an innocent bystander to say the least—the only man standing—it automatically makes him guilty.
However, say the defendant did execute the felony. Was it well contemplated? I would say not. How could this man—excuse me—incompetent man for lack of more virtuous expression, conceive the thought to perform such transgressions? It is quite evident the defendant could not have acted upon his own thoughts. If anything, he performed upon command. There is not an ounce of intellectual capability within that impenetrable skull. Look. What do you see? Do you envision bravery? Do you perceive nerve? Certainly not. What you are observing gentlemen is a coward. A coward that has no capability or the nerve to assassinate another man. A coward that is incapable of pickpocketing from another individual.
Gentlemen of the jury please take a moment and consider this. The state of Louisiana has one motto: “Union, Justice, and Confidence” (“Louisiana State Motto”). One word, minuscule to some, but not to others, lies within the context of that motto: justice. The supremacy employed by law, the principles to maintain unprejudiced treatment in a legal environment. In such a time, Jim Crow laws segregate every white man and white woman from the African American race (“Jim Crow”). Justice is blind in this case! The motto we, as Louisiana citizens, try to uphold is not being advocated. The defendant is being wrongly prosecuted. There is no justice here. No impartiality for the black population. They are granted no entitlement to vote for their superiors of the municipal and state of which they reside. Only one percent of the black population has been eligible to vote over the past several years because of the incredulously insane requirements and poll taxes (Adegbile). Therefore, no black man is entitled to vote for the superiors who determine his fate or receive justice. Is that correct?
Did the oath each and every one of you accept state, “It doesn’t matter anymore.

Just do the best you can, but it won’t matter?” (Gaines 66). Gentlemen, please contemplate the result of the Plessy v. Ferguson court case. The court case that ultimately made discrimination and segregation the rule of the land. As a result, it was not prohibited to have divided accommodations for black and white Americans as long as they were “equal” (“The Rise and Fall”). Equal. Nothing segregated is equal. Is that why it does not matter whether this man is executed for a crime he did not commit? Is he not equal to the other individuals in this room? Gentlemen of the jury, it is rather apparent the man who undoubtedly could not recite “The Pledge of Allegiance” if you asked him to or even write his name could not have organized and committed an assassination and robbery. Be lenient! If this man is executed, it will be like depriving his godmother of her precious gemstone. Without her precious gemstone she will start to wither like a flower on a cold, winter night and will no longer be on Earth to radiate her kindheartedness. With this, I leave my final remark using the words of Mahatma Gandhi for they are rather wise, “There is a higher court than courts of justice and that is the court of conscience. It supersedes all other courts” (“Conscience Quotes”). In the end, this case lies within the conscience of one’s soul and his decision based upon that. Thank you all for your

time.