Injustice For All: The West Memphis Three

2766 Words6 Pages

The justice system present in the United States is one of fairness, equality, and human rights. In a court of law, all men are created equal and have certain unalienable rights that nothing or no one can take away. What is to happen when these rights are denied, abused, or ignored? It is a frightening outcome when unruly factors destroy the basis of this system. As a victim of injustice once said, “People have prejudices, people have fears, people have hates. These things cloud our ability to reason.” Injustice has a tendency to overshadow reason. How can one feel safe in this country, when no one is totally safe from the sometimes unjust scrutiny of the law? If justice rests on one being innocent until proven guilty, what is to happen when one is to be guilty until proven innocent?
Imagine the most heinous act, a human sacrifice, Satanic cult, or devil worshipers. Now imagine a shadowy forest, several busy freeways, a murky stream, and three lifeless young bodies. One parent describes the act; “Imagine all the evil that you could think of, of how someone could be murdered, and that’s how these three children died.” The fear of such things quickly spread through the town of West Memphis, Arkansas on May 6, 1993. The scene at Robin Hood Hills was a gruesome one on that hot afternoon. The discovery of three bodies, each an eight-year-old boy, sent shock across the community instantly. Stevie Branch, Michael Moore, and Christopher Byers were last seen riding their bicycles into the woods, a popular playground for the cub scouts, around six o’clock on the evening of May 5, 1993. At approximately eight o’clock that evening, the three frightened parents phoned the West Memphis Police Department.
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Inciardi, James A. Criminal Justice. Orlando : Academic Press, Inc. , 1984.
Kadish, Sanford H. "Encyclopedia of Crime and Justice." 62-63. New York: The Free Press, 1983.
Leveritt, Mara. Devil's Knot. New York: Atria Books, 2002.
Lorimer, Lawrence T. "Grolier Encyclopedia of Knowledge." In Capital Punishment, 117. Danbury: Connecticut, 1991.
Metallica. Welcome Home (Sanitarium). Comp. James Alan Hetfield, Lars Ulrich Kirk L. Hammett. 1986.
Sacks, Ethan. "Damien Echols of West Memphis Three still fights for justice- and exoneration- with his new movie." New York Daily News, 2012: 1-2.
Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory. Directed by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky. 2011.
Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills. Directed by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky. 1996.

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