To Kill A Mockingbird Essay

To Kill A Mockingbird Research Paper

In previous eras, anti-Black sentiment was widely acknowledged and sometimes encouraged in the United States. Black litigants have endured a long history of racist attitudes and inequality in the criminal justice system To this day, it is impossible to determine if jurors present an unbiased trial for the defendants regardless of their racial background. Although the undercurrent of racism may continue to be present in modern juries, racial prejudice in the modern legal system is certainly less flagrant as many.

Mockingbird Trial

As To Kill a Mockingbird indicated, the legal system in courtrooms was affected by the pervasive racial injustice and stereotyping of the premodern era. Despitethis overwhelming evidence that had unarguably proved their innocence Tom Robinson, who had been of raping a white woman, was “a dead man the minute Mayella Ewell opened her mouth and screamed” And even Atticus Finch’s final plea that “In the name of God, do your duty,” the failure of the jurors from completing this moral obligation and achieving an impartial verdict was because the jury was not a full representation of Maycomb. Although the novel establishes that the town of Maycomb had women and minorities, the jury itself was monochromatic and only consisted of twelve white men. It was due to this absence of diversity that inhibited the Maycomb jurors from granting Tom Robinson with his right to a fair and impartial trial.

The Scottsboro Boys

In another similar case, nine black teeanagers from ages thirteen to nineteen were arrested, falsely accused, and initially sentenced for raping two white women, Victoria Price and Ruby Bates, on a train in Scottsboro, Alabama in 1931. The young boys were also tried ...

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...elps assists the objective of providing defendants and the public with an unbiased and honest system.

Conclusion

Revisiting the issues brought up by Harper Lee in To Kill a Mockingbird, it seems clear that majority of Americans do not live in a racist society as the one portrayed in Maycomb. After centuries of facing prolonged struggles of activism and change, open hatred and prejudice against Blacks has become unacceptable and often taboo in today’s society. Even though there may still be underlying tendencies of prejudice that could affect jurors decisions in present-day trials, the heavy cascade of anti-Black sentiment and overtly racial norms that had previously prevailed in America has greatly diminished. Black defendants by far have an improved opportunity of receiving a more fair and impartial verdict in the modern legal system than they did in the 1930’s.