Brown v. Board of Education AND State v. Zimmerman

Brown v Board of Education (347 U.S. 483) and State v Zimmerman (2012-CF-001083-A) are two high-profile cases that captured attentions of many Americans and illustrated laws at the time. The Brown v Board of Education was a Supreme Court case. This case's author of opinion came from United States Supreme Court Justice, Mr. Warren. One of the facts of the case is that were 4 other states that were a part of the case: Kansas, South Carolina, Virginia and Delaware, where plaintiffs sought to obtain admission to public schools on a nonsegregated basis. "In each of the cases other than the Delaware case, a three-judge federal district denied relief to the plaintiffs of the so-called 'separate but equal' doctrine announced by the Court in Plessy v Ferguson." Because Delaware was not in agreement with the opinion of the other states, it made the opinion a dissenting opinion. The law/ruling of the case comes from the 14th Amendment along with the Plessy v Ferguson case ruling. The rationale for the opinion of the case was that the Supreme Court Justices agreed that the segregation of children in public schools, on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other 'tangible' factors may be equal, will deprive the children of the minority group to receive equal educational opportunities. The State v Zimmerman case is a little different. For starters, the State v Zimmerman case was not a Supreme Court case like Brown v Board of Education. It is a criminal case, and because so, there is no author of opinion and isn't concurring or dissenting. The facts of the case are that on Sunday, February 26, 2012, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin walked to a nearby Seven Eleven, where he purchased a can of iced tea and a bag of skittles. While Martin was walking back to the gated community where he was temporarily staying at with his father, he was being watched by George Zimmerman, who also lived in the gated community. Zimmerman was in his car at the time when he made a call to the police to tell them that he believed Martin looked suspicious. A police dispatcher informed Zimmerman that an officer was on the way, and that Zimmerman should wait for the officer to arrive. During this time, Martin was on the phone with a friend and described to her what was happening. Martin attempted to run home, when Zimmerman got out of his vehicle and started following Martin. The ending result was Zimmerman shooting Martin, and killing him. Zimmerman was initially charged with 2nd degree murder. The disposition of the case were various motion: Motion to Revoke Bond, Motion for various media outlets to intervene, Motion for Protective Order, Motion for Gag Order, Motion to allow telephonic testimony, Motion to disqualify trial judge and a Motion to permit the Defendant to appear in Civilian Clothing. These are just a few of the dispositions of the case. The verdict of the case ruled in favor of the defendant. Zimmerman was found not guilty.

12 Angry Men Review

12 Angry Men was a movie about an all-male jury who was given the task from the judge to decide whether an 18-year-old young man was guilty of stabbing his father in the chest. The judge told the men that if they had any type of reasonable doubt, they should write a verdict of not guilty. If they weren't able to find a doubt and they whole-hardheartedly believed that the boy was guilty, they should give him that verdict but they should not do so and try to get a lower sentence for the boy because the death penalty would be mandatory as a sentence for him. The judge said the jury had a "grave responsibility." Life and death lied in the hands of the jury. The movie starts with 11 guilty votes from the jury and 1 vote of not guilty . The one juror who voted not guilty was able to show reasonable doubt to the other jurors, creating a switch from 11 guilty and 1 not guilty to an unanimous vote of not guilty.

The movie shows an example of due process of law. Due process of the law is like a guarantee that all law proceedings will be fair and that one will be given notice of the proceedings and an opportunity to be heard before a verdict is given. The due process is among the jury members. Before the majority vote of guilty is passed, Juror #8 challenges that. He votes not guilty because he is simply unsure. He points out the facts that the defendant has had a hard life. He was kicked around his whole life, born in the slums, mom died when he was 9, and his dad served a jail term for forgery. Juror #8 felt that because of his background, they should really review the case before giving a verdict of guilty. I believed that the others saw that same evidence and voted guilty because they saw the negative instead of the possible like Juror #8. The majority chose guilty because that was what they thought and they thought the boy was not only capable of doing so, but the one who committed the crime.

When Juror #8 opened the room up to reasonable doubt, the others started to put themselves in the case. They looked at the case from a new perspective. Eventually each juror changed their verdict. The idea of conformity played a major role in the movie. At first the majority of the jurors kept their vote of guilty because that was already the established consensus. No one wanted to go against the majority, but that gradually changed. The conformity was broken because Juror #8 helped the other jurors see that there were things in the case that were not adding up.

Lived experiences also played a role in the movie. After all the men changed their vote from guilty to not guilty, the one juror who was adamant about the boy being guilty changed his vote because he began to think of his own son. He began to think of the relationship that he and his son have or had, because they have not seen each other in 2 years. When the jurors went back over the evidence, they began to use some of their experiences to kind of justify amongst themselves what was right and wrong.

Throughout the whole movie, the jurors were given the task to basically decide what was right and wrong. The big question, however, is what constitutes as right and wrong? The 11 jurors believed that it was clear that the boy was guilty, but when they went around the table to explain why, a lot of them had no definite reason. As a student of the law and social science, I feel that the jury "did the right thing" by first thoroughly discussing the case before immediately coming to a conclusion of guilty. The word "right" does not necessarily mean accurate in this case. When I say that they did the "right" thing, I mean that they followed order in giving the boy a fair opportunity in comparing the "facts" to logic. This point goes back to due process. An opportunity was given for Juror #8 to plead his case of why he felt the boy might be not guilty. All the evidence was closely examined and the jury was better able to come up with a verdict, as oppose to assuming what they thought should be the verdict.

Link #1:  Insight
Link #2: Commentary

Introduction and My Perspective

Hello ALL.

My name is Dominique Danielle Triplett. I am a 21 year old senior at Jackson State University. I am an English major with a concentration in Journalism. I don’t have just one set career goal, because I want to do so many things. I enjoy taking pictures and would like to eventually travel the world, taking pictures and writing stories on different happenings. I thought about teaching English, a subject that I’ve loved since 10^th grade. I love to write so of course I want to write a book and even be able to create a t.v. series. Another thing I want to do is become a lawyer. I would like to work for the Innocence Project. I was inspired to work with the organization this summer when I interned at Jackson Free Press.

The story in particular was the story about Cedric Willis, who at the time was a 19-year-old wrongly accused of rape, robbery, and capital murder. Willis spent 12 years in prison. He was finally released in March of 2006. Cedric now travels the state, sharing his experiences with others.

After reading Cedric’s story, I felt so angry with the legal system. Why did it take so long for Cedric to be released? How could he be charged when there was no real proof? Why didn’t the court allow him to present the fact that the DNA for the rape didn’t match his? I just had so many questions.

I just have mixed emotions about the law in this country. In the case of Willis, I didn’t like how the law handled things. I think him being charged was totally wrong. There was no evidence, but he was still charged and sentenced to life, plus 90 years.

Then there are other cases where though I am unhappy about the verdict, I must admit that the law is justified. One case in particular, is the Casey Anthony trial. The prosecution had only circumstantial evidence, nothing concrete, but I just knew in my gut that Casey killed her daughter and that she should have gotten life in prison or the death penalty. It’s okay though, because the crazy law that we have might work out like it did for O.J. Simpson. He was accused of killing his ex wife and her friend, but was found not-guilty. Then he was found guilty for stealing his own memorabilia and got life in prison. It has been cut down since then though.