Annotated Bibliography Deal Frees West Memphis Three

This book relates to death penalty cases where there are overzealous police and prosecutors who get tunnel vision about

The West Memphis Three was a trail convicting three teenagers: Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley of killing three little boys; Michael Moore, Stevie Branch, and Chris Byers. This trail was considered to be a satanic ritual because Damien Echols wasn’t considered normal to the other members of society in his town. He did “dabble in many religions” and Satanism being one with admiring photos of torture and death, but it was not a satanic ritual. The court used members that were far removed from any alleged "Satanic Panic" in West Memphis to give the defendants a better shot at a fair trial and unbiased juries. Damien Echols was sentenced to solitary confinement for eight years from his 20 years in prison.

The book 5.41, Randy Turner and John Hacker, is a story of a great devastation that hit the town of Joplin, Missouri on the 22nd of May 2011, where humanity saw the destructive tornado that hit their town, and people lost a large number of townspeople. It was the place of a great amount of people who survived the most catastrophic tornado they had seen in their lifetime. The President of the United States, the Governor of Missouri, a Catholic priest and a Methodist minister gave speeches to the people of Joplin after the tornado was struck about a week later, and what did they need to hear from them that people of Joplin had to strive to help their neighbours b looking out to each other, they had to have faith in themselves that were strong

Summary: This law review addresses the problem the author, Jordan Gross, refers to as the “Upside Down Mississippi Problem.” Officially, it is referred to as the “Mississippi Problem”, and defined as “the failure of state courts, particularly in the South, to fully protect the rights of economically and racially marginalized defendants, most often poor African Americans” (10). Essentially, due to federalization, standardization and nationalization in the past, there has been a gap created between federal criminal law and state criminal law. This particularly occurs in cases where there is concurrent jurisdiction or, in other words, both the state and federal governments are able to prosecute the criminal case.

In the book Just Mercy: A story of Justice and Redemption Bryan Stevenson details his story of his experiences as a lawyer fighting for justice. This story encompasses over twenty-five years worth of impactful cases and how policy changes, due to major Supreme Court cases, were dealt with locally. The main issue that he was dealing with was the death penalty, and how it was systematically being misused. The main focus of the book to showcase this was on the case of Walter McMillian. After the murder of Ronda Morrison, a well known white woman in the area, there was a lot of pressure exerted by the community on the sheriff to make an arrest on the case.

One of the main pieces of evidence that prosecutors used against the West Memphis Three relied on the confession given by Jessie Misskelley. This so-called “confession” consisted of a story that placed both Echols and Baldwin at the scene of the crime, included information directly fed to Misskelley, and above all, contained major discrepancies within the story Misskelley provided versus the events that actually took place. During the first recorded confession, Misskelley incorrectly identified the time of the murder more than once, claiming that the “events took place about 9:00 a.m. on May 5” and later “chang[ing] that time to 12:00 noon,” which was still incorrect(). He also mentioned that “[the three boys] had skipped school that day,” when, in fact, they had attended class and were accounted for, along with misidentifying the item used to tie up the boys, claiming the item was rope when it was actually shoelaces that were used(). Misskelley also implied that the victims were raped, though no evidence supported his indication.

Annotated Bibliography Altman, Susan. “Scottsboro Trial.” Encyclopedia of African-American Heritage, Second Edition, Facts On File, 2000. African-American History.

Roberts and Olson try and relate what each group is feeling, thinking, and what drove them to the extremes that were executed. It is hard to tell an author bias because so many different versions of an event were made available to the reader for consideration. It seems, however, there is an overall “tilt” toward Texas and its defenders, though the portrait of Sam Houston was, at times, harsh.

TKAM/Scottsboro- Final Paper Racism has been a major social issue in our modern world. From many years ago to today, there has been discrimination among many. Nine young african american men were accused of rapping 2 white women in 1931 (Scottsboro Boys) and a black man was accused of rape in To Kill a Mockingbird. The men were falsely convicted due to the fact that they were black men and the victims were white women.

In the early 1990’s the U.S. Supreme Court case Roper v. Simmons took place and at the same time cases that were similar were also being heard. This case involved the defendant Christopher Simmons, who commited the crime, and Donald P. Roper, the plaintiff, who was the superintendent of Potosi Correctional Center and was representing the state of Missouri. The case would never have happened if it wasn't for the actions of 17-year old Christopher Simmons of Missouri in 1993. Simmons and a couple of his friends concocted a plan to murder Shirley Crook for reasons unknown. Only Simmons and one of his two friends commited it burglarizing Crook’s residence, binding her up and then driving to a state park and throwing her full of life body off

Tn the year 1954, Anne Braden and her husband, Carl Braden purchased a house in an all-white neighborhood in Louisville, Kentucky. However, they purchased the house not for themselves, but for an African American couple, Charlotte and Andrew Wade. And this turns into “Anne Braden’s account of what this act of friendship precipitated -- mob violence against the Wades, the bombing of their house, and a prison term for sedition for Carl Braden” (p. ix). The book goes through chronologically to all the effects that occurred from 1954 on, including, Anne’s husband, Carl’s, sparked idea to purchase the house all the way to the final outcomes and asking the writer if she could, would she do it again.

It all began in the location of Canton Mississippi in the early 1990's. The book is about the raping of a young female at the age of 10 named Tonya, and the trial preceding the incidents that occurred. From the raping there was a man named Carl Lee Hailey, her father who worked at the mill begins to take a dominant role in the book. While saying that the biggest character in the book would have to be Jake Brigance. Jake Brigance is Carl Lee’s Lawyer and is also the man who took on the trial.

On March 25, 1931, the lives of nine young African American boys would be changed forever, and certainly not for the better. The boys, ages ranging from thirteen to twenty, were falsely accused of raping two white women on a train and tried multiple times in court. The set of trials is a largely forgotten and overlooked landmark case for not only the Civil Rights Movement, but all of American history. The Scottsboro Boys Trials have shaped modern American society by evolving and inclusifying constitutional law, shedding a national light on legal misconducts, and acted as a beacon of hope for the Civil Rights Movement in one of its earliest stages. Charlie Weems, Willie Robeson, Olen Montgomery, Ozzie Powell, Eugene Williams, Roy and Andy Wright,

Francheska V. Ronquillo P-101 Sec 8 II- BS ENT Mrs. Jeanette L. Yasol-Naval A Time to Kill “What’s in us that seeks the truth, is it our minds? Or is it our hearts?” - Jake Tyler Brigance Summary:

The theme is the moral or lesson of the story. Such an empowering and eye opening story like Ruby Bridges, can have multiple themes. Especially when this story is real and doesn't specify what you should learn from the story. And with these type of stories, everyone learns something different. But I believe that one of the many themes of Ruby Bridges is---you shouldn’t judge someone based on their skin tone.