Watching George’ case in this video, I feel sad for what happened to him. It is unfair for him to be charged with murder and be sentenced to death. And the result is heavily against the federal constitution and the judiciary of USA.
In the federal constitution, the first amendment of Bill of rights decided that individual has their right to speak, which means that they can express their views freely and defend for themselves as their will. And, they can choose to keep in silence when others, like authorities are questioning them. But in this case, all I could see is that everyone who’ s in charge refused to listen to this 14-year-old teenager and acted in a hurry to force him to accept the result. When this boy said he was innocent, his opinion was totally ignored. And the lawyer, from the white community, was selected to defend for this boy. From the latest discovery, this lawyer may actually be related with the murder’s rich family. It is more likely that the murder was a white person.
Also, in the fourth amendment of Bill of rights, there is content about the right procedure of giving search warrants to civilians. It is said that without certain evidence and the permission of the jury, search warrants will not work or to be sent to civilians. In the part about detention, there is a same rule to decide whether a person can be kept in prison. In this boy’s case, it is unusual to see the abuse of rights in the arrest. Little George was taken from his guardian and all his guardians were threatened not to participate in this case. They are driven away to places far from South Carolina. George was said to kill two girls of his age, but in the pictures, we can see that he was so weak to carry bodies. At least, I don’t believe that a boy of thirteen can kill others or know he needs to hide their bodies after they were died.
About the death sentence, there is clear regulation in the fifth amendment in Bill of rights: Only the Grand jury has the right to sentence a civilian’s death. However, in this case, the jury of South Carolina, a basic level court can kill a boy and execute him in the next day of the sentence was given. And in this case, it only took the trial for two and a half hours to decide whether to kill a little boy. They didn’t send this case to the Grand jury based on the requirement that all major crimes are needed to be passed to the Grand jury and ask for their suggestion. I was so touched by the despair in this boy’s eyes since he knew that no one could help him. It was more ridiculous that to prove he is guilty, the police used their own police officers as the witnesses and provide testimony. This truly disobeyed the process of acting jurisdictions.
Said by the constitution in the first amendments in1791 that everyone has the right to vote. But back to 1944, African Americans’ right to vote are ignored by entire nation so no jury from the black could appear, this leaded to a result that they had no legal weapons to protect themselves from wrong charges at that time. No wonder why this boy had no one on juries on his back.
Except the previous amendments, the fifteenth amendments can also show that how unjust the court and the police of the South Carolina were. In this amendment, It was regulated that the government should admit people of color share the same right to vote like white persons. No discriminations are allowed during this process, and the result must be admitted.
In the rest seven amendments other that Bill of rights, like the twenty-sixth amendment, it is said that the government should not deny a civilian’s right to vote when they arrived the age of eighteen. In my knowings, this means that a black person, when he or she arrives eighteen, he or she can vote, so he or she can be a jury. However, it seems that the black couldn’t of that time.
The action of the judge was also unacceptable. There is a trend that the American laws were amended to respect human’s rights and call for equality in rights. But the judge, even though he already knew that the case he was dealing with was involved with a boy under age and the murder was a severe murder case, which needed more consideration, he still decided his sentence according to an unreliable evidence and chose to ignore the unreasonable fact behind this case. And in the eighth amendment, heavy penalties are prohibited to be put on criminals. Death sentence should not be abused in this case because this criminal is a little boy.
In conclusion, Little George’s case was only a ‘atrocity’ which could be avoided by acting the amendments rightly. The court, the jury, the police, all contribute the death of this innocent young child by offending the US constitutions. But thinking of the situation of his time, I see how had it was to save him from a nationwide injustice and discriminations. But I believe with more speculations over the abuse of authorities, and the open air for different races in present, America can learn lessons from George’s case and never do the same wrong again.