Johnny Cade Research Paper

To start off my case, do you really want to see a dead 16 year old be found guilty… after his own death? I know if I got a dead kid found guilty, I might not sleep too calmly at night, at least not for a while. At the moment, there isn’t any evidence proving that he is not guilty, so let’s shed some light on this situation and get some background on what happened. As you all know, Johnny Cade, the suspected murderer, is part of a street gang known as the Greasers. The “victim” Robert Sheldon is part of the rival gang called Socs. Socs would often “jump” or assault the Greasers with no motive. That night would have been a regular jumping of two greasers, Johnny Cade and Ponyboy Curtis. Because of this evidence that I will expand on later, I believe that Johnny Cade should rest in peace knowing he is innocent, because he did it in self defense. He should be found absolutely innocent of murder.

His best friend, Randy Adderson and a few other young men went. Actually, Randy had given a confession on the entire event, stating that Johnny stabbed Robert in self defense. Ponyboy claims the same thing, both Ponyboy and Randy’s stories line up almost exactly the same. For example, Ponyboy stated, “Bob shook his head, smiling slowly. ‘You could use a bath, greaser. And a good working over. And we got all night to do it. Give the kid a bath, David.’ (pg 51)” After these events, David began drowning Ponyboy in the park’s fountain. Bob and the rest of the group went after Johnny, and Johnny, in fear, pulled out a switchblade and stabbed Bob in the stomach, killing