“Trial by Fire” by David Grann written on September 9th, 2009 is a piece that unearths everyone’s innermost fear of being punished for a deed that they did not commit.Grann argues that capital punishment is a crude and unruly sentence, given the fact that many of these cases are not conducted properly. So called arson investigators that used a “systematic method” to corroborate a case against a man because of his troubled history. Cameron Todd Willingham was charged with murder of his children by arson due problematic evidence against him such as pour patterns and puddle configurations leading investigators to believe that he used a liquid accelerant to start a fire. This evidence would later be disapproved by Gerald Hurst, an acclaimed scientist …show more content…
He inserts an allusion to an incident in the late 1600s where they executed a man’s family just by another man’s claim that his family had killed him, only to find that he was kidnapped and subjected to slave labor. It 's clear what Grann is inciting. We need to investigate death row cases thoroughly and not take everything at face value. They did not find the Englishman 's body, but yet they instantly assumed that the Englishman 's family committed the crime. That goes fairly the same in the Willingham case, the investigators found no motive for the crime, but yet they were so determined to easily pin it up on Willingham. Grann continues to use the appeal of logos by sharing the statistics of how many felons (more than a hundred and thirty people) who were exonerated from the death penalty because of DNA testing. This draws the conclusion that if there wasn 't the DNA, more than one hundred individuals would 've been executed by a “fail safe system”. Grann also included acclaimed fire scientist Gerald Hurst 's take on Willingham 's case. He eliminated a large amount of the incriminating evidence against Willingham such as the craze glass, the refrigerator blocking the back door, and his unhurt …show more content…
He adds that Willingham writes poetry and draws. By including this it adds more humanistic characteristic to a man who had otherwise been stripped of his mortality and soul by those who have deemed him a sociopath. This allows readers to sympathize with him and makes readers contemplate how can a man that writes and draws possibly kill his own flesh and blood. He continues with his case when he adds the bit where Willingham found out that his appeal was denied. Grann includes that they did not even give an explanation because they deliberated in secret and they didn’t even have to review Willingham’s materials. It gives the reader a sense of anguish for Willingham regarding the fact that the board has no set of specific criteria to judge him on. This was the last leg Willingham was on and it seemed like his life wasn 't taken seriously by the board. It reveals how flawed this system is. Grann mentions that Willingham even tried to study law in order to effectively defend his case. This gives the reader a sense that Willingham is trying to prove his innocence to the best of his ability rather than giving
The Armenian genocide ruins Vahan Kenderian’s picture-perfect life. Vahan is the son of the richest Armenian in Turkey and before the war begins, he always has food in his belly and a roof over his head in the book Forgotten Fire by Adam Bagdasarian. Life is absolutely quintessential for Vahan, until the war starts in 1915, when he endures many deaths of his family, losses of his friends, and frightening experiences in a short amount of time. He is a prisoner of war early in the book and is starved for days. As he goes through life, he is very unlucky and experiences other deaths, not just the deaths of his family. Vahan ultimately becomes the man his family would want him to be.
Act 1 of Mr. Burns was the only act in the play that places it characters in a casual setting. It was easy to decipher the type of characters the actors were portraying in the scene. For example, the actor who played a meek character ported this by taking up as little space as she could and crouching behind objects. Also, two characters were pretty intimate with each other. They cuddled around the fire when discussing the probability of a power plant shutting down and shared soft smiles with each other. I felt that the characters were allowed to be themselves in this scene compared to the other acts. In Act 2, the characters were at work that called for them to have a professional mindset, even though they were familiar with each other. The
``In criminal law, confession evidence is a prosecutor’s most potent weapon’’ (Kassin, 1997)—“the ‘queen of proofs’ in the law” (Brooks, 2000). Regardless of when in the legal process they occur, statements of confession often provide the most incriminating form of evidence and have been shown to significantly increase the rate of conviction. Legal scholars even argue that a defendant’s confession may be the sole piece of evidence considered during a trial and often guides jurors’ perception of the case (McCormick, 1972). The admission of a false confession can be the deciding point between a suspect’s freedom and their death sentence. To this end, research and analysis of the false confessions-filled Norfolk Four case reveals the drastic and controversial measures that the prosecuting team will take to provoke a confession, be it true or false.
He simply wanted to show and explain to his readers how the jury system really works. Instead of writing a book solely on the
“DNA Testing and the Death Penalty.” ACLU: American Civil Liberties Union. 3 Oct. 2011. Web. 22 April 2014.
The novel Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer has a very in-depth conflict that is showcased all throughout the novel. In Theo's community, there is a high-profile murder trial about to begin. Mr. Pete Duffy, a wealthy business man, is accused of murdering his wife Myra Duffy. The prosecutors have the idea that Mr. Duffy did it for the one million dollar insurance policy he took out on his wife earlier, however they have no proof to support this accusation (Grisham 53). The defendants do however have the proof that no one saw the murder, for all everyone knew, Mr. Duffy was playing his daily round of golf at the golf course right by his house. As the trial moved on, the jury was starting to lean towards letting Mr. Duffy walk a free man. To this point, there has been no proof to support the prosecutors statements that Mr. Duffy killed h...
... of public humiliation or being locked up for year. There is also a mention of how non-violent criminals are being affected by prison. This affects the reader emotional aspect toward the argument because it make’s the reader have sympathy causing them to lean toward Jacoby’s view. This is called an appeal to emotion and is not generally a good thing to have in a credible paper.
...uasion by the use of varies cases to support his argument. He mostly employs techniques such as juxtaposition, rhetorical question, and pathos and logos to strengthen his argument. However, his lack of use of an array of techniques makes his essay come short. In addition, when he states that “these are just the tiresome facts” he disregards his whole argument before that sentence by making it seem like his argument is irrelevant. Moreover, he fails to mention to his readers that he is a lawyer and also does not mention his cases which would have given him an authoritative position far better than Mayor Koch to state his view on the subject of death penalty. However I do agree with in saying that justice does demand that we punish murderers but not by execution but rather by imprisonment in which their bad conscience would become their enemy and tormentor for life.
In the case, “Facing a Fire” prepared by Ann Buchholtz, there are several problems and issues to identify in determining if Herman Singer should rebuild the factory due to a fire or retire on his insurance proceeds. I believe that this case is about social reform and self-interest. I think that Singer needs to ask himself, what is in the firm’s best economic interests. There are several things to question within this case, what should Herman Singer do and why, should he rebuild the factory or begin retirement, if he rebuilds, should he relocate the firm to an area where wages are lower and what provisions, if any, should Singer make for his employees as well as for the community?
To support their conclusion the board tells the story of two men who were exonerated after spending thirty years in prison for a crime they did not commit. Days after the rape and murder of eleven year old Sabrina Buie, half-brothers Henry Lee McCollum and Leon Brown confessed to the crime. Not only were their confessions made under pressure without parents or an attorney present, but the prosecution failed to present multiple pieces of evidence to the defense lawyers, DNA evidence that proved McCollum and Brown were not responsible for the murder. In fact, the DNA belonged to a Roscoe Artis, who was a suspect all along and was convicted of a similar crime just weeks later.
Dieter, Richard C. "Innocence and the Death Penalty: The Increasing Danger of Executing the Innocent." DPIC. Death Penalty Information Center, 1 July 1997. Web. 12 Dec. 2014. .
In Truman Capote’s famous non-fiction novel, In Cold Blood, there is evidence that supports the injustices of the trial: death penalty. The final outcome of the trail was never to be any different than death. “Of all the people in all the world, the Clutters were the least likely to be murdered” (Capote 85). We know the two men who killed the Clutter family, Perry Smith and Bill Hickock, preplanned the crime with malice and forethought. Although the actions were crul and grusome, does Death Row fit what they did if their pasts, childhood environments and situation, are bad. Capote shows the effect of childhood on the killers and if the death penalty is fair. Capote gives the killers a voice to show their humanity by giving childhood accounts of their lives. He questions the justice of is the death penalty fair, and if inherent evil is a product of childhood or society. Is it nature or nurture? Capote gives a look into the minds of the killers and the nature vs. nurture theory. The detailed account the killers’ childhoods makes the reader sympathize with the Clutter family’s killers Smith and Hickock. Should they reserve the death penalty? Did Truman Capote take a stand on the death penalty? By giving the readers a detailed accounting of Perry Smith’s and Dick Hickock’s childhood, Capote sets up the reader for nurture vs. nature debate on the death penalty. The question then becomes, do the effects (if any) caused by environment in childhood make for a trained killer or a natural born one?
In Jeannette Wall’s book The Glass Castle, the narrator and author Jeanette has had various terrifying encounters with chaos and destruction. She was burned cooking hot dogs when she was young, frozen in the winter, and starved when her family was low on money. Each time, she has pulled through and survived. In The Glass Castle, fire is a symbol representing chaos, destruction and fear. Jeanette has fought many battles involving neglect, starvation, and poverty but she has always pulled through these destructive experiences just like when she was a child burned from the hot dogs.
How could she, his wife, betray him and kill him with no remorse? The article, “Trial Lawyers Cater to Jurors’ Demands for Visual Evidence,” written by Sylvia Hsieh, stresses the importance of visual evidence. Hsieh writes in a formal tone as she delves into a pool of various example trials used to explain visual evidence, along with specific quotes obtained from well-known lawyers and workers in the industry. This simply states the recurring idea that visual evidence is important.
On Bloodsworth’s appeal he argued several points. First he argued that there was not sufficient evidence to tie Bloodsworth to the crime. The courts ruled that the ruling stand on the grounds that the witness evidence was enough for reasonable doubt that the c...