Courts’ and Attorneys’ Ulterior Motives during Judgement

Courts’ and Attorneys’ Ulterior Motives during Judgement

            During some trials, courts and attorneys have their own hidden reasons and ways for winning guilty verdicts. This problem has been majorly faced by the African Americans in different case proceedings in different counties of the state.

According to Stevenson, Thomas Tate the Sheriff, ABI investigator Benson Simon and the district attorney investigator Larry Ikner forced an arrest on Walter McMillan with less than enough proof due to disparity on Morrison’s murder case. On the seventh of June 1987, Sheriff Thomas led an army of soldiers to arrest McMillan on the road that he mainly used while driving his truck. They forced him out of the vehicle as Thomas told him that he was under arrest over sodomy charges. He could not understand and asked for a bold explanation which upon grasping he laughed out due to disbelief of the accusation. Unlawfully, Tate threatened Walter as he kept telling him that he will be taken to a secret place and executed without trial as they did to a young African American man named Michael Donald. The police ignored the obvious evidence that the Donald’s death was a hate crime but twisted the plot and claimed that he was a drug dealer. The arrest was only issued to McMillan since Ikner, Simon and Tate were desperately looking for someone to accuse on the murder instead of conducting a deeper investigation on the case.

Myer’s testimony on the murder of Morrison Ronda was illogical since it sounded like a plotted twist. There were gaps like why would an African American man choose a white man to become his accomplice during the crime? How did Walter drive his truck to the gas station where he met Myer yet his arm was injured? It was almost impossible also believing that a black man could conduct a criminal activity in Monroeville. Ted Pearson, the District Attorney found this irrelevant but still held Walter as guilty of a murder case while he was arrested on sodomy charges. The police also mobilized Bill Hooks, a jailhouse snitch, to testify against Walter by forcefully telling him to say that he saw Walter’s truck at the crime scene during the time of the murder. In exchange he was to be released from jail and given some money at the cost of framing McMillan for the murder which Hooks did. They also forced Myer into testifying against Walter by subjecting him to harsh conditions until he broke and was ready to say what Tate and his team wanted. Ted Pearson who had been the district attorney for nearly twenty years hence had the power to dismiss allegations against Walter since he also saw the gaps in the case. However, Ted was nearly retiring but was being disturbed by the fact that his office could not solve Morrison’s murder case. He therefore focused on charging McMillan over the murder instead of using the right steps in following the right steps. He knew through this conviction; his office will be greatly praised since the civilians were becoming impatient on this case hence making corrupt decisions.

In counties like Monroe the African Americans were greatly oppressed especially in courtrooms. This boosted Ted’s confidence in convicting McMillan contrary to the fact that he heard from many blacks that he was innocent and his arrest was just a misunderstanding. African Americans were excluded from the jury service in many counties including Monroeville which was forty percent blacks, when a case concerning a black citizen was brought to trial. This was against the legal requirement of racial integration and diversity during the jury services. This was commenced from the 1880s in the Supreme Court ruling of Strauder vs West Virginia where it was said that the blacks should not be excluded from jury services but still the jury was filled by the whites for the years afterward. The Supreme Court further stated that a single African American jury should handle a single case by upholding a Texas statute that said the jurors should be intelligent and upright which was an indirect attack formed against the blacks. Although in the case of Batson vs Kentucky 1986 the Supreme Court ruled that the prosecutor can be directly challenged when they use a commanding expression when it comes to racial discrimination, the prosecutors still advance to creating more ways of rolling out the African Americans from the jury.

Exclusion of the black jurors would lead to an easy win of a case against the black civilians since their rights cannot be defended with equality as deserved. This was also depicted in Jesse Morrison’s story, a death row prisoner, who’s trial came after exclusion of almost all the black jurors. He said that his prosecutor in Barbour county used almost all the ways to be listened to without opposition to remove all the African Americans from the jury pool. This also happened to Vernon Madison from Mobile whereby the prosecutor removed all the black jurors from his case with no logical reason. Other people like Earl McGahee were unlawfully convicted after facing an all-white jury in Dallas County despite the fact that the region is sixty percent blacks. During Albert Jefferson’s trial, the prosecutor subdivided the list of the jurors as strong, medium, weak and lastly black which was filled by the African American jurors who were later stripped off the case. This was a sign of racial discrimination and also favoring the white since all the defendants of the wrongfully accused black are pushed to the backbench as listeners to the proceeding. This was also evident when we see the law enforcement’s reaction led by Tate and Pearson when Walter McMillan’s family raises money to hire J. L. Chestnut and Bruce Boynton, the only black criminal defendants in the county, to represent him instead of a white lawyer. Monroe County officials were angry with this step and even conspired a story saying that the money used to hire the lawyers had been stolen making Walter more guilty.

1. Chestnut and Bruce presented a motion in Court that they wanted Walter’s case to be handled in a different county. In their disbelief, the motion was backed up by both Ted Pearson and judge Key at once saying that it will also be easy for the witnesses to access the court in time. This idea was doubted by Walter’s criminal lawyers since there seemed to be something planned by the district attorney and the judge. Within no time, the judge concluded that the trial will take place at Bay Minette, Baldwin County which was a plot to pull down McMillan since there is a small number of black jurors in the County. They made an attempt to turn down the venue but the judge made no further changes. This was like a direct sentence to Walter since the plot to make him face white jurors was enough to deny him his right to express himself before the Court. Under no circumstances would the white jurors could not let him win the case but he still had hope.

During Walter McMillan’s court hearing in February 1988, Pearson excluded the African American jurors from the case using his peremptory strike. His defendants disagreed with that but the judge turned down their complaint and ordered the continuation of the hearing. Myers gave his false testimony which had been clearly shaped by Sheriff Tate. He narrated from how he was picked and all the activities at Jackson Cleaners. Surprisingly, the judge listened to Myers’ story without questioning and even after Chestnut had proof that Myers was lying the prosecutor brought him on the stand for the second time to repeat his testimony which was totally unfair. The court also presented Bill Hooks who was paid for a confession on stand. He said that he saw Walter’s truck at Jackson Cleaners and recognized due to its modification as a “low-rider” which was false since the modification was done after Morrison’s murder. This confession was backed up by a strange man named Joe Hightower who was had no history with Walter. Generally, the County officials, the prosecutor and Tate were all against McMillan being a black man hence plotted a win over his case by use of different ways like the introduction of the false testifiers and even proceeding with the trials in exclusion of black jurors.

Many African Americans have suffered racial discrimination in different ways during legal proceedings. Prioritization of the white in courts of law by the courts and attorneys having an aim of oppressing the has been a major problem in our judiciary system. There are some measures that can be taken to prevent these scenarios. Legal measures should be taken on the members of the judiciary who may practice racial discrimination in courts or make immature judgements on whether someone is guilty or not. This can range from expulsion from his career to being arrested and detained. The judiciary can also permanently assign jurists different courts having balanced the races hence under no circumstances can a juror be excluded from a case due to racial discrimination. These steps can greatly reduce the ulterior motives used in courtrooms and arrests hence a fair trial to all civilians.

Work Cited

Coates, Rodney D. “Law and the cultural production of race and racialized systems of oppression: Early American court cases.” American Behavioral Scientist 47.3 (2003): 329-351

King, Anna. “Just mercy through cultural and convict criminology.” Journal of criminal psychology (2018).