Examples Of Jury Selection In To Kill A Mockingbird

“A court is only as sound as the men who make it up. I am confident that you gentlemen will review without passion the evidence you have heard, come to a decision, and restore this defendant to his family, in the name of God, do your duty” (Lee, Chapter 20). Jury selections were previously one-sided situations that were later proven unethical. Racism was common during the 1930s and was often evident in jury selection. The outcomes of trials during those times were were often determined based upon the victim’s testimony. At that time juries mainly consisted of all white jurors. African Americans were infrequently selected to be in the jury, violating their fourteenth amendment rights. Another example of racism is found with the segregation

Yet they did, and their report to the court advises all the changes made that I had proposed” (Bly, Jury Quotes). Jury Selection contains methods that are used to determine who will serve on a jury. In the 1930s, the courtrooms in America were persuaded primarily by omnipresent racial prejudice. In the book To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee quotes, “In our courts, when it’s a white man’s word against a black man’s, the white man always wins. They’re ugly, but those are the facts of life.” (Lee, Chapter 23). Attorneys in the court are permitted to review the prospective jurors and make any inquiries they seems necessary. A strike list contrived by the names appearing on the master strike list is handed to the court to determine which of the destined jurors is to participate. Each one of the jurors must solemnly swear that they will answer all questions directed to them and will try all issues submitted to them and the verdicts around them. An examination of the destined jurors is proposed to selection, with an identification of their parties and their counsel, giving the juror an outline of the case, explaining the reasons of the examination. The court is permitted to raise any doubts about the destined juror’s qualifications to serve in the case on trial. The attorneys are then allowed to investigate the destined jurors. However, the

People justified their reasonings and social inequality based upon the characteristics they attributed. People were who they were based upon their genes. There was hardly anything a black man could say to change the minds of an all white jury. However, ways were being sought to end the discrimination throughout America. Changes were being found in the way white people viewed others from different races with different color skin. Discrimination was not as existent in the 1950s and 60s. Racial prejudice was something that affected America in it’s perspective on