Similarities Between Pitts And Lee

965 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: False confessions research paper

Freddie Pitts and Wilbert Lee were both accused with the murder of two gas station attendants. The police had beaten a confession out of Lee and Pitts, and after their false confession the police arrested them and took them to jail. “Their conviction was swift and they were beaten by their interrogators” (floridainnocent).They had asked for a mercy trial, they were then sent to a courtroom with a jury full of white men. Willie Mae Lee, was one of the only “eyewitnesses” to the crime that happened on that night. She had been threatened that if she had not told what she had seen on July 31 of 1963 they would punish her. Pitts and Lee were accused that they were the were the killers because of their skin color. They had gotten sentenced to a death …show more content…

The first people to blame are the police that had beaten the confession out of Pitts and Lee. They were a major reason for this case, and why it all went wrong. They had no right to beat a confession out of anyone, even if they black. “CID investigators Potts and Hoag testified that Pitts looked "very tired, like he was in pain", complained that his jaw was swollen, told them he had been beaten, and asked them to feel the bumps on his head, and to see if they could tell what was wrong with his eyes which were bloodshot” (leagle.com).The army men did not report that anything was wrong with him. The second person for the blame, is the court system in Florida, they were bias in such a way that they had put Pitts and Lee in a courtroom with a jury full of white men. They should at least had colored men within the jury but they did not want Pitts and Lee to get a chance of getting away without punishment. They were given a death sentence, and that was to stay until they had gone to higher court. They went nine years with the death penalty hanging over their heads. There are many other people to blame as well, such as the media and false witness testimony as well as the corrupt police

Show More
Related

  • Book Review For Hair's Carnival Of Fury

    872 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...s aimed at blacks. I was horrified while reading the fate of Georgia resident, Sam Hose (or Holt), and believe that that occurrence alone would motivate Robert Charles to murder. I was also disgusted with the South's lack of justice. Some whites were tried for murder, and although clearly guilty, received no punishment.

    Read More

  • The Case of Emmett Louis Till

    655 Words  | 2 Pages

    Months before Emmett's death in 1955, two African American activists in Mississippi had been murdered. An NAACP field worker, the Reverend George Lee, was shot and killed at point blank range while driving in his car after trying to vote in Belzoni. A few weeks later in Brookhaven, Lamar Smith was shot and killed in front of the county courthouse -- in broad daylight and before witnesses -- after casting his ballot. Both were active in black voter registration drives. No one was arrested in connection with either murder

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Blood Done Sign My Name By Timothy Tyson

    1020 Words  | 3 Pages

    The hypocrisy and double standard that allowed whites to bring harm to blacks without fear of any repercussions had existed for years before the murder Tyson wrote about occurred in May of 1970 (Tyson 2004, 1). Lynching of black men was common place in the south as Billie Holiday sang her song “Strange Fruit” and the eyes of justice looked the other way. On the other side of the coin, justice was brought swiftly to those blacks who stepped out of line and brought harm to the white race. Take for instance Nate Turner, the slave who led a rebellion against whites. Even the Teel’s brought their own form of justice to Henry Marrow because he “said something” to one of their white wives (1).

    Read More

  • Stories of Scottsboro by James E. Goodman

    798 Words  | 2 Pages

    On March 25, 1931 nine African American youths were falsely accused and wrongfully imprisoned for the rape of two white girls. Over the next six consecutive years, trials were held to attempt to prove the innocence of these nine young men. The court battles ranged from the U.S Supreme court to the Scottsboro county court with almost every decision the same---guilty. Finally, with the proceedings draining Alabama financially and politically, four of the boys ...

    Read More

  • Moores Ford Lynching

    1025 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...t this time. The fact that a long the way he was stopped by a dozen men on a bridge fully loaded with weapons and he was the only one not murdered in the car leads to suspicion. Harrison was a white man and this could be an answer to why he was not killed. If Harrison did not have anything to do with these murders then he would have been killed also due to the fact that he could have told police investigators evidence to the murder. Thirdly, if Harrison laid down $600 to get a black person out of jail, which was not accepted at this time in society, it could have led to the closing stages that Harrison would have spent money at any cost to see the African Americans dead. Although Harrison is deceased, the evidence that has been proven thus far concludes that he was the sole perpetrator and if he was still alive, he could answer questions that remain unanswered.

    Read More

  • The Scottsboro Vs. Tom Robinson's Case

    167 Words  | 1 Pages

    There are many differences and similarities between The Scottsboro Case and the Tom Robinson’s case of the novel To Kill a Mockingbird. Some similarities between the two cases are that the defendants are African Americans who are falsely accused of a crime they never committed. This reveals that the cases were during the time where racism was at its worst. All the defendants were accused of rape and the two women testified against black men, like what Mayella Ewell did. And the judges were all white. Some differences are that the Scottsboro case included nine men, while Tom Robinson was the only man in his trial. And all but the 12 year old was sentenced to death, while Tom was shot later on after the trial. Lastly, after the state retried

    Read More

  • How Did Emmett Till Dehumanized

    702 Words  | 2 Pages

    Emmett Till made the ultimate sacrifice and has shown what could lie in the future if a change is not made (Latson). Rosa Parks’s resistance to the racial segregation of the buses has inspired action in the NAACP and has shown the potential of what they could accomplish if blacks continue to defy racism. The prejudice among the white jury members clouded their judgment in the Scottsboro Trials, leaving them unable to fairly deduce a reasonable punishment or verdict. These trials making national news has made African Americans eager to combat and uncover the malpractices in the court. Till’s, Parks’s, and the Scottsboro Boys’s sacrifices were not in vain. They exposed the circumstances that African Americans had to endure and rallied them to protest the inequalities between races. Their actions were the impetus of the Civil Rights

    Read More

  • Chicago Race Riot of 1919

    3035 Words  | 7 Pages

    There is some history that explains why the incident on that Chicago beach escalated to the point where 23 blacks and 15 whites were killed, 500 more were injured and 1,000 blacks were left homeless (96). When the local police were summoned to the scene, they refused to arrest the white man identified as the one who instigated the attack. It was generally acknowledged that the state should “look the other way” as long as private violence stayed at a low level (Waskow 265). This police indifference, viewed by most blacks as racial bias, played a major role in enraging the black population. In the wake of the Chica...

    Read More

  • The West Memphis Three Murder Trial

    892 Words  | 2 Pages

    "The West Memphis Three Trial: Who was the real killer or killers?." The West Memphis Three

    Read More

  • The Scottsboro Trials and To Kill A Mockingbird

    1162 Words  | 3 Pages

    While talking to the police, the women accused all of the black men of raping them. These women were known prostitutes of the area, but their word was still taken over the black men who were accused. Twelve days later, the trial took place. There were many witnesses that held bias towards the black men. One acquaintance of the women was a white lady who refused to support the lies that were coming out of the white women's mouths.

    Read More

  • The Rodney King Beating

    706 Words  | 2 Pages

    This incident would have produced nothing more than another report for resisting arrest had a bystander, George Holliday, not videotaped the altercation. Holliday then released the footage to the media. LAPD Officers Lawrence Powell, Stacey Koon, Timothy Wind and Theodore Brisino were indicted and charged with assaulting King. Superior Court Judge Stanley Weisberg ordered a change of venue to suburban Simi Valley, which is a predominantly white suburb of Los Angeles. All officers were subsequently acquitted by a jury comprised of 10 whites, one Hispanic and one Asian, and the African American community responded in a manner far worse than the Watts Riots of 1965. ?While the King beating was tragic, it was just the trigger that released the rage of a community in economic strife and a police department in serious dec...

    Read More

  • To Kill a Mockingbird

    579 Words  | 2 Pages

    Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is a fictional story in which a black man is accused of a crime against the daughter of one of the most hateful, racist men in all of Maycomb, Alabama. Though the book is considered fictional, it couldn’t be any more real. Nine black men were “hoboing” a train and ended up being accused of a crime against two white women and known as vial criminals throughout the south. This incident became known as the Scottsboro trial. Although the book To Kill a Mockingbird and the Scottsboro trial are very similar, they are also quite different.

    Read More

  • To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

    775 Words  | 2 Pages

    When Lee was six years old one of the nations most notorious trials was taking place, the Scottsboro Trials. “On March 25, 1931, a freight train was stopped in Paint Rock, a tiny community in Northern Alabama, and nine young African American men who had been riding the rails were arrested” (Johnson). “Two white women on the train,

    Read More

  • Emmett Till Discrimination Cases

    821 Words  | 2 Pages

    While visiting family in Money, Mississippi, Emmett was brutally murdered for flirting with a white woman. His attackers, the white woman’s husband and her brother, made Emmitt carry a 75-pound cotton-gin to the bank of the Tallahatchie River and made him take off his clothes. The two men then beat him to an inch of his life, gouged out his eye, shot him in the head, and then threw his body, tied to the cotton-gin fan with barbed wire, into the river. Three days later, his body was discovered but was beaten beyond recognition that it was identified by a ring he wore from his father. Two weeks later, the men went on trial for the murder and on September 23, the all-white jury reached the verdict of “not guilty,” explaining that they believed the state had failed to prove the identity of the body. Many people around the country were outraged by the decision and also by the state’s decision not to indict the two men on the separate charge of kidnapping. Several weeks later, the men sold the real story to the newspapers, confessing that they really did murder Emmett Till and went into vast detail of how they carried out the crime (The Death of Emmett Till). Emmett Till did not get a fair trial and justice because of the color of his skin. The men accused got off on the charges because of the “all-white” jury and the discrimination

    Read More

  • Examples Of Guilty

    668 Words  | 2 Pages

    Guilty. They had to be guilty, I thought as I saw the evidence which was laid in front of me. 2 rape charges, 2 accounts of theft and 1 murder charge. Apparently, 2 black men named Tyrone and Uniqua have been charged with these crimes. According to the report I received from the police, these 2 men under the influence of alcohol or other unauthorized substances went into their local store to buy some cigarettes. Once in the store they waited till everyone was out then attempted a robbery but failed when a customer came in. In shock, Uniqua shot and killed the man at point-blank range in the head before making his escape with Tyrone in an apparently stolen 1925 Chrysler Sedan. Once on the road, the 2 men stopped by a party, picked up 2 women and proceeded to rape them.

    Read More

More about Similarities Between Pitts And Lee

Open Document