Literature and Law Spring 2020

Injustice in To Kill a Mockingbird

The 1962 To Kill a Mockingbird movie directed by Robert Mulligan is the tragic story of an innocent African American man, Tom Robinson, who is found guilty of rape charges all because of the jury’s prejudice. While the film version does differ from the original novel, written by Harper Lee, it carries the same heavy shadow of injustice that the legal system is plagued with. This film, heavily weighed down with racism, illuminates the flaws that occur in a space that is praised to be the most far of them all. During Tom’s trial, Atticus Finch, Tom’s attorney, delivers many convincing arguments as to how Tom did not rape Mayella. He exposes the consensual relationship the two had, Mayella’s pleads for Tom to visit and assist her, and how Mayella’s bruises do not line up with a purely right-handed man. However, the jury did not use an unbiased eye. They used Tom’s race against him to decide that even in light of all of the evidence that proved him to be innocent, he was guilty. Racism is a major injustice that is woven throughout the flawed legal system in Maycomb, Alabama.

In the To Kill a Mockingbird film, the injustice of racism does not simply begin in the courts of Maycomb, but it is instilled in the minds of its citizens. This becomes evident throughout the film when Atticus is approached with racist and disgusting comments. Atticus becomes the target of indirect racism himself because he is defending the innocence of an African American man. This movie illuminates the generational racism towards African Americans which leads to the deep injustice found in the legal system. The film shows that a guilty verdict does not necessarily mean a guilty man. Tom Robinson proves that in Maycomb, skin color determines guilt.

Death and the Maiden, written by Ariel Dorfman, also directly works with the same theme of disbelief as the To Kill a Mockingbird film does. Both works highlight the inconsistencies and the injustices of the legal system. While To Kill a Mockingbird shows injustice to be bound in racism, Death and the Maiden finds it through gender. Paulina, as was Tom, suffers through the unescapable pain of not being believed. The difference is that while Tom was not believed by the town of Maycomb, Paulina was not believed by her own husband. This novel illustrates the deep injustice that women experience when their story is not believed.

Upon Roberto’s arrival, Paulina knows that the man in her own home is her past attacker. She informs her husband, Gerardo, an attorney, of her instinct. He questions her and her gut feeling, but never turns his back on the strange man, his wife’s alleged attacker. Even after Paulina pleads for her husband to understand and believe her, she instead takes everything into her own hands. In these moments, she is not seen as getting her own version of justice, she is seen as crazy. Paulina knows that she cannot go forth and beg the law for justice for herself. Her own husband refuses to listen and believe her; therefore, she knows that she would have little luck trying to convince a court. There is such a severe injustice for women throughout the legal system that they feel as though they have to step out and do things for themselves.

The most telling lines throughout the entirety of Death and the Maiden is when Paulina and Gerardo are talking through the potential of there being a court where they right the wrongs that happened under the dictatorship. Gerardo has the opportunity to be the attorney for it. She is less than satisfied when she hears that even after all the evidence is presented, that the criminals still may get away due to a flawed legal system. It is all up to the judges in the end, “The judges? The same judges who never intervened to save one life in seventeen years of dictatorship…Judge Peralta who told that poor woman who had come to ask for her missing husband that the man had probably grown tired of her and run off with some other woman? That judge? What did you call him? A judge? A Judge? (Dorfman 10). This quote severely illuminates that women and victims are more often than not given unfair and unjust treatment in courts of law. One’s pain and abuse is either believed or not due to the decision of one man. Overall, both race and gender show the gaps in the To Kill a Mockingbird film and Death and the Maiden’s legal systems.

The Unique Manifestation of Mental Illness portrayed in the Wire

Season Two of HBO’s critically acclaimed drama series The Wire follows a group of stevedores working on the docks of the Baltimore harbor and the police who’s goal is to ultimately take them down. Within this crime ridden family, two main players in the international smuggling rings are Frank Sobotka and his troubled son, Ziggy Sobotka. In the second to last episode, the police eventually raided the union offices of the dockworkers, lead by Frank Sobotka, and arrest these criminals. Of these criminals are Frank’s aforementioned son Ziggy, and his nephew Nick. After Frank is released from jail, he goes to see Ziggy in prison to talk with him about their future steps, including the matter of bail, which is said to be “tricky”. It is in this scene that a clear psychological strain has been placed upon Ziggy, as if these years of being a criminal have finally broke his conscience. It is in this scene in which he confronts and begs to his father, he confronts him over this life of crime he was essentially born into and he begs his father for anything, just any sliver of hope. Perhaps the most poignant line in this scene is when Ziggy looks at his father, and for the first time is completely honest with not only his father, but also himself: “I got tired I got tired of being the punchline of every joke”. This line sums up his entire psychological state at that moment, a state of which he is simply given up all hope. At this point Ziggy has become all but a passive passenger in his own life.

By boiling down his entire essence into simply seeing himself as nothing more of the constant punchline, Ziggy has unknowingly opened the Pandora’s box of why he is like this. Immediate after hearing this confession of hopelessness from Ziggy, Frank says, “if you had problems you coulda [sic] just came to me”, to which Ziggy replies, “You wouldn’t of heard”, thus showing that perhaps Ziggy was not so secretive of his active psychological unbalance, and rather it falls upon the father to simply be more attentive. This shows that no matter how old a child ages, the constant need for parental guidance will be ever present. Ziggy follows up that, with a blatant accusation of over neglect, saying “You were always too busy drudging up the canal”, once again showing that a parents role in a child’s life has a direct consequence on that child’s psyche. For Ziggy to say this, it now places the blame for his hopelessness directly upon Frank’s shoulders, at least in Ziggy’s eyes.

A second accusation is levied upon Frank Sobotka by his child, this time encompassing the lies being force fed to Ziggy his entire life: “I always used to think you were working all that time”. This line truly sums up the entire reason for Ziggy to be without hope, his one person who he had been dependent on his entire life, his father, his absolute role model, built a relationship with his child based solely on lies. Not only did he lie to his child, once he determined his child to be of age, then incorporated him into the life of crime, most likely without ever a second thought to the wishes of Ziggy.

Ziggy did not lose hope, it was stolen from him before he ever realized.

11 Angry Men

Twelve Angry Men is a film about twelve men sitting at a table. They are on jury duty in a murder case, in which an eighteen year old boy allegedly killed his father. After hearing the trial, the jury is moved into a small room to discuss their verdict. The fan in the corner does not turn on so the room is hot, and when they open the windows, one man mentions that it is supposed to be the hottest day of the year. Some of the men have tickets for a baseball game starting later that night and are anxious to get voting over with. My favorite part of the movie is that through the whole film, no names are given until the very last scene. It enhances the movie because it reflects a real jury. With a name comes an association and in a jury, it is important that the jurors keep that emotional distance. The jury’s decision has to be unanimous either guilty or not guilty in order to move through with the prosecution or not. The result of the first vote they take is 11-1 guilty. This sends everyone into a fury. When the rest of the men asked the single man why he voted not guilty, he said he just wasn’t sure. He brings up that the only piece of evidence is the murder weapon that is a “rare” pocket knife that had no finger prints. The boy on trial admitted to owning the knife but did not use it to kill his father. The man talking pulls out the same knife placing it next to the murder weapon saying he bought it at a pawn shop near the boys house. He suggests the boy’s knife might have gotten lost and someone used a similar one to kill his father. While others deny it, he claims that it is possible. One of the men says “It may be possible but it’s not probable.” The man believes that they can’t send this boy to the death sentence if there is probable doubt. Before they know it the vote is 8-4 guilty.

The men in favor of ‘not guilty’ run through each piece of suspicion and disprove it. There are two witnesses on the case, a lady who saw the murder from across the street, and a man who lived downstairs. The witness who lived downstairs said it took him 15 seconds from hearing the thud of the dead victim, to opening his door and seeing the boy run down the stairs. However, the oldest man on the jury relates to the old man and points out that he is an old man with a limp. He says it would have taken him more than 15 seconds to get to the door so the jury is able to disprove the fact that he saw the boy and claim that he assumed he heard the boy coming down the stairs. During the next vote, it’s 6-6. Then it becomes 9-3 not guilty.

The woman across the street said that when she rolled over in her bed in the middle of the night, she saw the murder through a passing train. The jurors point out that she wears glasses and it’s unlikely that she put her glasses on in that moment. Therefore, her eyesight is questionable. She may have witnessed a murder but it is likely that it was a blur and she did not identify the boy. The men who want to prosecute the boy say that because she is a witness, her statement has to be true. From the beginning of the film, the same men claim that they can’t believe the suspect’s story because he’s “one of them.” The one man who has been fighting for the boy all along asks, “Why do you believe her story but not his? She’s one of them too isn’t she?” This is when it clicked for me what “them” meant. They don’t explicitly say this in the movie, but based on the fact that it was produced in 1957, we can confidently assume that the suspect is a man of color and when they refer to “them” in the movie they are talking about people of color. This is the implicit reason behind many of the men’s original vote to convict the boy. This reveals they actually dont care about the witness they just want to prosecute him. The first man who keeps pushing for “not guilty,” calls the others out, saying “Prejudice always skews the truth.” He reminds me a lot of Atticus in the way that he is fighting for this man that everyone else looks down on by logically disproving the evidence and simply having sympathy. And similar to To Kill A Mockingbird, no matter what facts were disproved, some men still found him guilty because of his skin color.

The next vote 11-1 not guilty. Throughout the film there is a man who is strongly committed to his guilty vote. When the rest of the men asked him why he still voted guilty, he said he didn’t know and started crying. Then he changes his vote “not guilty.” As he continues to sob, everyone else leaves. The first man who voted “not guilty” stays behind and grabs the crying man’s jacket for him (a very Atticus move). Then the movie is over. Probably the most exciting part of the movie is in the last scene when the first two men to vote ‘not guilty’ introduce themselves. Their names are Davis and Mccardle.

My thoughts on the podcast, “Serial”

***spoilers for “Serial” below****

As a criminal justice major and aspiring criminal defense attorney, I am obsessed with investigative podcasts. I got into them about 2 years ago, when I listened to Payne Lindsey’s “Up and Vanished” for the first time. Payne Lindsey, as an amateur podcaster, cracked a cold case murder by investigating and telling the story in his podcast’s first season. It was the coolest, most interesting thing and I was 100% hooked on podcasts from there on out. Now, I know I’m rambling a little bit, but basically what I am trying to get at is the decision as to what option I should pick for the purpose of this assignment was a no brainer for me – it had to be the podcast “Serial.”

This first season of “Serial,” hosted by Sarah Koenig, told the story of a murder that happened in Baltimore in 1999. An 18 year old girl named Hae went missing after school one day, and a few weeks later was found dead in Leakin Park (a forest/park area in Baltimore, Maryland). Her cause of death was manual strangulation. Investigators started looking at potential suspects and different people in her life. Eventually they decided to move forward with charging Hae’s ex boyfriend, Adnan, with her murder. He was convicted and is currently serving a life sentence in prison. However, the host of this podcast believes that there may be more to the story, and maybe Adnan is innocent. This podcast explores different aspects of the story, and tries to understand what really happened, and who is truly responsible for Hae‘s death.

Sarah Koenig unpacks a lot of the evidence (or lack thereof) that the state was basing their case on throughout the podcast. One aspect that almost all of the state’s case was dependent on was a boy named Jay, who was friends with Adnan. He told the police that Adnan planned, killed and disposed of Hae’s body, and that he confided in Jay with all of this information. He even gave police Adnan’s exact timeline. However, there is a potential witness who saw and spoke with Adnan during the time frame that Jay claims he was killing and burying Hae. This alibi, however, was never explored or introduced by Adnan’s defense attorney at trial. What baffles me is that his defense attorney didn’t even reach out to the witness once. Later, to not much surprise, Adnan’s defense attorney was disbarred for a different case for doing an insufficient job.

One aspect of this whole case that scares me the most is the fact that it is so easy to blame someone for a crime. Although there were statements from Jay that makes it seem like Adnan did it, there was really no other concrete evidence that proved that he killed her. A quote that stuck out at me in the podcast was when Adnan was being interviewed by the host from prison, and asked “what was it about me that would allow someone to even entertain the possibility that I could do this?” (episode 6). This idea made me really question everything I know about the legal system, sometimes people are convicted without any evidence directly linking them to the crime. There were no fingerprints or DNA matching Adnan’s at the crime scene, he was convicted based on the fact that he was Hae’s ex-boyfriend, and statements that Jay gave to the police. Sarah Koenig raised many questions throughout the podcast, that maybe Jay was lying and was instead protecting someone else for the crime and framing Adnan. What scares me is you can be living a normal life, and then one day be at the forefront of a murder case (hopefully that happens to none of us). I know that out of any suspects or people looked into, Adnan looked the most guilty for the crime. But does that mean he did it?

On the flip side, it’s also just as scary to think that someone as normal and convincing as Adnan could’ve actually done it. He was a normal high school student: running track, homecoming King, studying and doing well in school, having a lot of friends, etc. Listening to his interviews throughout this podcast is very convincing that he did not kill Hae. I kept thinking, this guy? There’s just no way. But, what’s scary is the thought that Adnan, someone who reminds me of every other high school boy I went to school with, could’ve actually done it. Don, Hae’s boyfriend at the time of her death, even said that Adnan “was someone that I would’ve hung out with if I knew him in school” (episode 12).

Aspects within this podcast reminded of some of the things we’ve discussed in class. In many of the works we have read for class, there were themes of believability, innocence and guilt within them. Especially in texts that discuss the court system and how they handle different crimes. This podcast told the story, not of a murder, but of a teenage boy who went to prison for it, and whether he is innocent or guilty. Sadly, the ending of this podcast wasn’t like Payne Lindsey’s “Up and Vanished” where he cracked the case. Adnan was later granted a retrial but the same conclusion came from it. He is still in jail for Hae’s murder, and I can’t help but feel unsettled with that ending.

To Kill a Mockingbird and Death and the Maiden

Watching the film version of To Kill a Mockingbird was an extremely different experience than reading the novel. While the plot stays deceptively similar to the book’s–several things are cut, but it sticks largely true to what it does show–seeing the action take place was jarring in a way reading the novel was not. This speaks to the true strength of Harper Lee’s version: Scout’s perspective and her singular, childlike view on everything around her. Without this guiding the story, the film is largely centered around and led by Atticus. The movie paints a wide picture of his life as both a single father and a lawyer in the Deep South in the 1930s. Through focusing on Atticus and the trial rather than Jem and Scout’s youth, the story takes a much different turn for the viewer. Instead of being ensconced in Scout’s innocent, simple life, there is no longer any buffer between the viewer and the dark, disturbing happenings in Maycomb.

I am not sure whether it was because of my own naivete, or Scout’s, but while reading To Kill a Mockingbird, I did not grasp the significance of the scene with the crowd outside of Tom’s holding cell. Not until we discussed it virtually did I fully understand that Mr. Cunningham and his friends tried to lynch Tom Robinson before his case had even come to trial. I did not understand, as Scout did not, what exactly the stakes were for Atticus as he sat on the steps and threatened them with the sheriff. I knew there was danger, but the vague feelings of discomfort and forbearance were replaced by an immediate sense of fear and disgust in the film’s version. Seeing it played out, it is clear and repugnant. Mr. Cunningham, the man who doesn’t like to be thanked, tells Atticus: “You know what we want.” Instead of being somewhat in the dark with Scout, this time I knew what he wanted, too. Replacing the perspective of the story entirely changes the tone, though the outcome remains the same.

Likewise, when seeing the ending with Bob Ewell and Boo Radley, I was similarly disenchanted. Scout sees Boo as a kind of talisman, protector-like figure, perhaps even an imaginary friend. He represents the curiosity and daring of her childhood, and his rescue of her and Jem is a heroic moment, though he speaks little. Seeing him in the movie, he was actually kind of scary, and it hit me for the first time: he actually murdered a man. Not that Bob Ewell deserved less for his numerous crimes, including being basically responsible for Tom Robinson’s death and attempting to kill two children. The fact remains, though, that Boo Radley came out of his house, for the first time since stabbing his own father, and killed a man with a kitchen knife. It made me wonder if perhaps Atticus had been right to tell his children to stop obsessing over him, and if maybe there was a reason he had been locked away for so long. Without the veneer of childhood, the happy ending in the movie falls short in a way that I don’t think the novel’s ending did. Without Scout running the progression of events and narrating them in her own way as they related to her, the movie simply told a sad story and did nothing to fix it. Not that it could have been fixed; the damage was done. We even see Tom Robinson’s family react to his untimely death, in perhaps the scene hardest to watch. The film sorely missed Scout’s ability to seamlessly pair awful stories with the mundanities of school, summer, and her neighbors; the resilience of a child.

In comparing Atticus’s court scene to the other such representations of trials we have studied, I was drawn to thinking about Death and the Maiden. The cases involved are utterly and completely different, but both victims–Paulina and Tom Robinson–face obstacles that they know the law cannot, or will not, overcome for them. I am conflicted about the comparison between Atticus and Gerardo, but it begs to be made. They are both operators for the state with an interest in seeing the right thing happen, but both fall short in this pursuit. Of course, it is difficult to blame Atticus for the jury’s vote, and impossible to fault Gerardo for trying to dissuade Paulina from killing someone. However, Atticus’s ultimate loyalty is to justice more than to individuals, which reminds me of Gerardo in a sense. Gerardo was affected by his wife’s sufferings, and Atticus by Tom’s, but as lawyers devoted above all else, to the peaceful carrying out of the law, both of them lost something in the process.

Someone else talked about Atticus’s reaction to losing the case, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. He was resigned, not angry, which he had every right to be. Whether or not in the novel this was simply because he hid his anger from his children, in the film we see him grapple with Tom’s sentence and Tom’s death–he is affected, but not changed. He and Gerardo, while committed to justice as they see it, are ultimately serving a future that does not include the current grievances of their clients. Paulina, while on the opposite side of the “courtroom” than Tom, has a lot more in common with Tom than Mayella, her obvious counterpart. Though comparing Mayella and Paulina would reveal an interesting dichotomy; a woman seeking vengeance though held back by her husband, and a woman seeking a wrong vengeance under directions from her father. In Mayella’s case, her testimony did lead to the eventual death of the innocent man she accused. In Paulina’s, we never find out whether or not Roberto died, or whether or not he was innocent. Both show vastly different scenarios of the aftermath of a woman being sexually abused, but showcase the power–whether welded correctly or not–victims have when they say their piece. At the same time, they show the powerless; Paulina is never allowed to fully put Roberto on trial, and Mayella, in the end, put the wrong man to death because of her father’s continued hold over her. Atticus and Gerardo, though they might have won or lost their respective cases, have the power in both the play, the film, and the novel. With the law on their side, right or wrong, they are the heroes of their respective stories, and the ones with the most ability to affect change in their respective worlds.

The Harms of Ignoring Intersectionality.

In Kimberlié Crenshaw’s Mapping the Margins, she explores the flaws inherent in the systems of modern feminism and antiracist politics and how they often fail to recognize the unique areas in which they intersect. That is because these movements are based on the experiences of black men and middle-class white women which excludes large swathes of lower-class women of color and their struggles. She applauds the work that these movements have accomplished while also critiquing the exclusion of these marginalized women from the overall narrative by making it an either/or scenario for many of them. Crenshaw stresses the necessity of recognizing those who experience both racism and sexism and what can be changed to address those unique needs.

Crenshaw illustrates that by ignoring the intersection between the movements they ultimately end up hurting one another. She does this through her many examples of domestic violence and rape. In the instance of the latina woman who could not find shelter from her abusive husband Crenshaw shows the harms caused by the lack of preparedness or willingness of these women’s shelters to accept someone that they deemed outside of their norms for victims. Another instance of the banality of the movements is the refusal of the LAPD and other antiracist advocacy groups to release the domestic violence statistics for the very real fear that they would be used to demonize the people they represent.She argues that because of these failure of feminism to recognize race and the antiracist movements to address the oppression of the patriarchy, many women of color are left unspoken for when it comes to the issues that concern them the most.

Crenshaw frames all of her examples through not only a societal view but also a political and a cultural one as well, and in all scenarios, the voices of women of color are eclipsed by those who are either white or male. By ignoring the areas in which movements intersect those fighting for them are inadvertently harming their own causes and those of others fighting for representation, and by flooding conversations concerning race and gender with a narrow idea of what each means it creates a destructive dichotomy for those caught in the crossfire.

12 Angry Men

I chose to watch 12 Angry Men for this blog post. Besides reading the synopsis, I had no idea what I was about to watch. However, I am very happy with my decision to watch this. I was able to draw two connections from this movie to readings from class. One is to Death and the Maiden and the other is To Kill A Mockingbird.

The first connections I made happened right after the preliminary vote of whether the boy was guilty or not. I made this connection to Death and the Maiden. When the jurors were asked if the boy was guilty, 11 of the men raised their hands before moving to the not guilty vote. But, not all 11 men immediately raised their hands. A few of them were hesitant, as if they were looking to see how many other people voted guilty, or like they didn’t believe he was guilty, before they decided to vote. This reminded me of the scene in Death and the Maiden when the Gerardo was asking Paulina if Roberto is really the person, she thinks he is. Was he really the person responsible or was he just someone that she could place the blame on, that just so happened to fit the description she remembered?

This is the same question that juror 8 was asking, especially when it came to the witness that was an old man. The witness said he heard the boy yelling at his father right before the father’s body dropped to the ground, dead. Then after a few moments, he saw the boy running down the stairs. This is when juror 8 began to question the man’s recount of events. As I mentioned earlier the witness is an old man, who also happens to have a limp that makes it hard for him to walk. After a quick recreation of the man’s account to get to his door to see the boy run down, he questions whether the witness saw the boy run down the stairs or, at this point, if he even saw anyone run down the stairs. Which goes back to the question Gerardo has. Did the boy do it or is he someone that the blame has fallen on? As the men began to change their votes, this possibility gets stronger.

I found a couple connections between this movie and To Kill A Mockingbird. The first is the idea that one group of people is worse than another. In To Kill A Mockingbird, the trial was between a white family and a black man. In the book, the Tom Robinson, the black man, had a white man to vouch for him and say that he was not like what people thought of black men, even though he was not on trial or called as a witness. In 12 Angry Men, the trial was between two people in the slums. While deliberating, one of the jurors was trying to say that because he was from the slums, killing was something “those people” always did. However, one of the jurors also lived in the slums at one point in time, and he vouched for the boy saying that just because he was from the slums doesn’t necessarily mean he is a bad child and a killer. This juror was explaining that even though most of the time it was usually someone from the slums committing similar crimes, it is not always someone from the slums. It could very well be someone from what society would call “good people”, and that he should look at the facts of the case and base his vote on that and not on where the boy is from.

The second connection between these two happens during the cross-examination by Atticus of Mayella in To Kill A Mockingbird and during the discussion of the old male witness between juror 8 and juror 3. During the cross-examination of Mayella, Atticus started asking her questions that evoked answers that pointed away from Tom Robinson, and more towards her father as the real perpetrator. In other words, she almost let the truth out, that Tom was not guilty of raping her, but her father was guilty of it. The same thing happened right after juror 8 made is point about the old witness being an unreliable when it comes to him having seen the boy running down the stairs. Even though no question was asked, and I don’t remember exactly what was said, but it caused juror 3 to respond, “half the time, the old man was confused” or something of that nature. Juror 3 almost let his true feelings out, that he didn’t believe the boy was guilty.

Determining guilt is very important when someone’s life is on the line. All three of these works shows different ways guilt could be determined. One by witness, one by prejudice, and one by refusing to be truthful. All of which could lead to a false verdict of guilt. Luckily, in the end of this film, one juror was able to convince the other 11 that the boy was not guilty.

To Kill a Mockingbird and Just Mercy: Racism and it’s constant negativity

This week for our media assignment I chose to watch the new Just Mercy film. This movie exhibits the life and career of Bryan Stevenson, whose life goal is not only to defend those wrongly accused and unfairly charged; but mainly to help a man named Walter McMillian. Throughout the entire film, there are many instances of racism and legal troubles that the characters face. As I was watching this movie, I was thinking about which piece we discussed in class this semester would best relate to this storyline. As I finished the film, I realized that Just Mercy relates itself in many ways to another classic piece: To Kill a Mockingbird. I read both Just Mercy: A story of Justice and Redemption (the book the movie was based on), and To Kill a Mockingbird in high school. Rereading/watching these works now in college made me see the deeper themes and therefore made it alot easier for me to see the relations between the two. The main similarity that stood out to me was the theme of prejudice throughout both of these pieces. Prejudice in the form of racism is very prevalent in both Just Mercy and To Kill a Mockingbird, showing how important this issue continues to be. To Kill a Mockingbird exhibits racism in many ways throughout the novel, especially when it comes to people being racist towards Tom Robinson. This is a point I discussed in a previous blog post regarding To Kill a Mockingbird, and I think it is also extremely important that it be brought in this discussion and comparison. It is very obvious that the surrounding community believes that because of the color of Tom’s skin, he does not deserve a fair trial. People ultimately believed that Tom was guilty just by taking one look at him and seeing that he was black. There are many examples that could have proved Tom to be innocent, such as the fact that he had a crippled left arm and essentially had no motive to commit the crime at hand. These examples did not phase the public though because of his skin color in the end. The fact that Atticus believes Tom innocence even ends up causing problems within the community. Scout and Cecil end up fighting when Cecil announces that Scout’s father is defeding a negro. It becomes evident that racism is not only causing problems in the courtroom regarding Tom’s fate, but even sparks controversy between the rest of the people in the community. Atticus ends up being shamed over the sole fact that he believes Tom is innocent, so not only are people being discriminated against, but it leads to people’s thoughts and beliefs leading them to be discriminated against as well. As for Just Mercy, it is very similar in the fact that it includes the case of an innocent black man being accused and charged for a crime he did not commit. But not only does this film include a case of a black man wrongfully accused, but it also includes acts of racism towards Bryan Stevenson, a lawyer recently graduated from Harvard Law who just recently moved to the South. Stevenson experiences racism himself throughout this plot. Even though he is a successful Harvard grad (a very prestigious accomplishment), people still treat him like a minority because of the color of his skin and his career focus, which is helping African American inmates who have wrongfully ended up on death row. Stevenson has many problems starting up his own law firm in Alabama because of these two ideas. For example, when looking for a building to rent for this law firm, he is denied when they learn what his goals as a lawyer are. Bryan Stevenson’s client, Walter Mcmillian, whose case is the main focus of the film, experiences racism in many cruel and serious ways. This man was wrongfully accused of a serious crime, and the reasoning for his arrest is shocking. Police believe the word of a white convict saying he committed this crime over the word of multiple people who were with Mcmillian the day of the crime at a barbeque that was a few hours away. This group of individuals were black, which shows that the police believed one white man over a group of black individuals solely because of skin color. Another and final example of racism in this movie regards Mcmillian’s “cell neighbor” when he is in jail. This man was arrested because the police said “he just looked like a murderer”. His arrest was solely based on the color of his skin, nothing more. In the end, both of these pieces not only exhibit multiple instances of racism, but they show how this continues to be a problem that needs to be solved. These examples are emotional and hit home, they show why it is so unfair to treat people differently based on the color of their skin, and how their prejudice affects individuals and entire communities in the long run.

Policing and its impact on victims

The show Unbelievable, the mini-series detailing the true stories of a serial rapist, opens by presenting the sexual assault of the first victim, Marie Adler in rural Washington. Marie Adler was addressed by two male detectives, who first speak to her in a contradictory and repetitive manner. They collect evidence from the crime scene without Marie’s help and make her recount her statement multiple times there before taking her to the hospital. When inquiring about Marie, Detective Parker is told by her old foster mother essentially to not believe her, who states she seeks attention and has a troubled past. It is this attack on Marie’s credibility which acts as a catalyst for the detectives to abruptly and completely not believe her. After this conversation, the aggressive tone of the detectives is only amplified and Marie is pressured into saying she was lying.

This depiction of the two male detectives is foiled by the characters of the two female detectives. When the next victim, Amber, is raped in Colorado, Detective Duvall has a procedure she follows and explains to the victim, highlighting the discrepancies between her investigation and the male detectives’. Her investigation includes swabbing the face of the victim, walking her back through the crime scene, speaking to her in private etc. She is diligent about crime scene collection and making sure everything is done to collect as much evidence as possible within a timeframe that it is freshest. This discrepancy of the amount and quality of evidence collected is especially disheartening in the end, when the rapist reveals the most mistakes he made (in terms of leaving traces of DNA, etc.) occurred in Washington. Eventually, Detective Duvall makes a connection with a rape in another jurisdiction investigated by Detecive Rasmussen, and the two females move forward invesitgating together.

After the decision to fully merge their investigations, Detective Rasmussen says to Detective Duvall “You’re gonna move over to my joint. It’s no offense but we’ve got better toys. We’re gonna bring in the FBI. We’re gonna bring in the CBI. We’re gonna exploit every goddamn resource available to us” (ep. 3). It is this quote that brought my attention to look at how the film portrays the gap between training, resources, and experience between the two pairs of detectives. Not only are the female detectives aware of various resources, seek them out, and employ them, the audience can recognize their specialization as a part of sex crime investigations. With Detective Duvall, her experience (even though she is less experienced out of the two) is implied in her familiarity with the nurses who examine victims, and describes them as being great at their jobs.

The depiction of resources, experience, and specialized investigations is juxtaposed through cuts of scenes between them and the detectives of Marie Adler’s case. The visual imagery of the female pair’s department shows its breath of resources and specialization: the detectives have their own workspace, a detailed crime lab, available personal, and advanced technology. This is contrasted by the department of the male detectives. They are not specialized in sex crimes investigations and seem to lack in resources in terms of both technology and forensics. It is this juxtaposition though that is exacerbated by the male detectives conduct, which makes them individually responsible for various injustices.

It is the male detectives lack of their own self-awareness of their lack of experience coupled with their pride/ego which make them completely fail at their investigation. Rather than recognizing their own lack of experience in sex crimes and thus actively defining how they recognize rape through Marie, they instead deconstruct her story inaccurately based on their predispositions. Another Detective from a different district, Kirkland, calls this pair after a tip to collaborate based on the similar evidence of their two rapes. Instead of reopening the case and reevaluating their mistake, Detective Parker instead shuts him down by saying it was fabricated. An irony lies in the fact the very details and consistencies they found peculiar enough to disbelieve Marie’s story are the very details which form this connection. This shows Detective Parker’s inability to critically think about the investigation and his willingness to follow the misinformation. Unlike the female detectives who were willing to compare their cases, Detective Parker is not willing to look for evidence to corroborate Marie’s story and get justice for her. He only seeks to falsify it. In the end, it is his Hubris which ultimately causes the investigation to fail. However instead of causing their own downfall, it causes Marie’s. Not only does she not gain justice, they have the audacity to charge her with a crime of false reporting and never apologize.

Alongside other things we have read in class, I find myself comparing these interpretations to George Orwell’s piece “The Courthouse Ring” and To Kill a Mockingbird. In a sense, I think a connection can be drawn between Tom Robinson and Marie Adler in an opposing yet parallel sense. Tom is innocent being charged with commiting sexual assault because of racial bias towards him. Marie is a sexual assault victim whose perpetrator won’t be prosecuted because of police bias towards her. Tom does not receive justice because of racism of the jurors and the sheriff; Marie does not receive justice because of the bias and misconceptions of the detectives’ and the stepmother’s notions about rape.

I also think it can be interesting to compare Marie Adler with Mayella Ewell, and what a comparison of someone lying and telling the truth about sexual assault can show about the treatment of female complainants. Orwell cites a scholar who critques Atticus’ goal “to expliot a virtual catalog of misconceptions and fallacies about rape, each one calculuated to heighten mistrust of the female complaintant” (TNY). Orwell argues that Atticus asserts Mayella “was so starved for sex that she spent an entire year scheming for a way to make it happen” which is “to swap one set of priveldges for another” (TNY). Orwell demonstrates that while it was appropriate to defend Tom, the construction of a defense based on misconceptions surronding what rape and feminity should look like harms actual victims. For Atticus, he believes Mayella should have been hit on the opposite side of her face and employs the ” ‘she wanted it’ defense” (TNY). For the male detectives and Marie’s step mother, details of the shoelace and knife seem unlikely. Moreover, her emotional response is not what they would anticipate it to be and believe it is a ploy for attention. Both show that the need to deconstruct misconceptions about how sexual assault is shown and reacted to. Without this change, conflations of lying with victimhood can continue occuring, harming true victims as they report crimes committed against their bodies.

Modern Day “Death and the Maiden”

Ariel Dorfman’s “Death and the Maiden” was written 30 years ago about the Chilean regime. While it may seem specific, the play offers thematic elements that aren’t confined to the context of the play and are actually still relevant today. When reading the play, I felt that I had heard the story before, and I had actually seen it twice before reading what I consider the original. As a crime show fan, I’ve watched all of Criminal Minds and a lot of Law and Order SVU. Both shows pride themselves on using relevant topics for their content so I was surprised to realize that a play about Chile written 30 years prior was a basis for episodes from the shows. It proves to me that the topic of survivors finding a place in the law is still very much relevant today.

The Criminal Minds episode “Unknown Subject” is about the BAU team trying to catch a serial rapist, not knowing that one of the former victims had kidnapped a man she believed to be the perpetrator. She believed him to be her attacker because he played a song that had been repeatedly played while she was raped, creating a physical reaction for her. This directly takes an element from “Death and the Maiden” because of the song. She uses a gun and kidnaps him to hear his confession, like Paulina does to Roberto. The discomfort with the situation of the “at home” version of the law is the same as it is in “Death and the Maiden”. The episode makes you uncomfortable because as the man is pleading his case to the survivor, he seems so rational and believable. This is very much like Roberto. He tries to outsmart her by throwing logical alternatives to her belief that he committed the crime. Like Paulina, the survivor is portrayed to be the one that is crazy. She seems overly aggressive and irrational- a contrast to the man who seems to be trying to bring reason in the situation. In Law and Order SVU, “Remember Me/Remember Me Too”, the situation is similar. The kidnapped man who the woman believes the perpetrator is believed. He is thought to be the rational one trying to bring reason into a situation created by the woman who he calls “a crazy bitch”. Because the man is portrayed as the rational one, both episodes are uncomfortable. This leads for me to the question of where the law provides space for survivors, especially female survivors. The reality is that in each of these works, the law does not offer an obvious place for women. So much so that the women believe that it is better to kidnap their alleged abuser rather than turn to the police. These women are angry. The law seems to be actively working against them and believing the perpetrators and so they believe that they have to find justice for themselves. This anger and frustration with the law is misplaced by the women which causes them to be portrayed as crazy and irrational. As discussed in Criminal Minds, the system is a revictimization of these survivors so they create their own system. The law is imperfect here. It does more to serve the perpetrators than it does for the victims so the victims get angry. Their credibility is destroyed with their anger because of how they seem, giving the credibility to the alleged perpetrator they have kidnapped. Even though the two shows were made much later than the play, the fact that they used the premise of the play shows that this topic is still very much an issue today and the law is still not giving survivors the space that they need.

What is interesting about the episodes I watched is that both TV shows have a much stronger resolution that “Death and the Maiden”. In Criminal Minds, the BAU bursts in and convinces the survivor to put down her gun by telling her that the guy she kidnapped isn’t the perp. When he walks outside though, they arrest him for the 12 rapes. The man in Law and Order is also found to be guilty. We don’t get that same resolution or even an answer in “Death and the Maiden” and I think that is often the result of the law. I think the fact that these two modern takes end differently than the play proves that the law is moving more towards finding concrete answers for survivors. Maybe it is going to take a long time still and it is not going to be an easy journey, but the modern versions could be showing a shift in mindset of the people, which could lead to changes in the law. And this change could provide room for survivors in the law- something that each of these works prove is necessary for the success of justice.

Each of the works also prove how important a confession is to the healing of survivors. While they each change elements of the story, especially the endings, all of the survivors on the show want a confession. It is why each of them create their own “trials”. It shows how important the truth is for the law and for the healing of victims. These women need to hear their attackers confess and tell the truth so that they may start their healing process. The space in which they do this is their own because the law does not provide one for them.