Law Day Writing & Art Competition for Middle School Students
Journey to Esquire 2022 Law Day Writing and Art Competition
-Winners Announced-
1st place: Christian Guettler,
Thurgood Marshall Fundamental Middle School
Artwork - colored pencil
2nd place: Ella Owens
Coleman Middle School
Fictional Short Story - Untitled
3rd place: Ava Farchione
Coleman Middle School
Nonfiction Essay "How the Judicial Branch reflects the rights of US Citizens"
-Winners Announced-
1st place: Christian Guettler,
Thurgood Marshall Fundamental Middle School
Artwork - colored pencil
2nd place: Ella Owens
Coleman Middle School
Fictional Short Story - Untitled
3rd place: Ava Farchione
Coleman Middle School
Nonfiction Essay "How the Judicial Branch reflects the rights of US Citizens"
Ella Owens Fictional Short Story Untitled
As I walk through the dull, grey office, I can pretty much smell the lack of sleep as the keyboards clack, clack, clack away. Black coffee in hand, I stroll over to my desk and slump into my seat, its flimsy plastic creaking under my weight, I look over to see a bright, yellow sticky note sitting on my desk, it reads; “New case, file in the drawer” scribbled in a red biro. I check the drawer, and sure enough, there sits a sad, beige file. I open it up and right away get to work, as I read the tiny print, I jot down some notes on my notepad.
“Now this is a murder scene like never before”, I introspect. The police and forensic investigators found a bloody sock, an empty wallet, AND the murder weapon, not only that, but it had traces of DNA, just enough to send in for testing, however, that takes a long time, but in the meantime, the police have a suspect.
A young man, probably early ’20s, sits before me with a maroon durag and caramel skin. A tall police officer informs me that his name is Khalil Sencona, and they think he killed 12-year-old Kaylee White. It would be rude not to, so I introduce myself, “Hello Mr. Sencona, I’m Jamie Francis, I work with “Pink Orange Legal Co.”, and I will be your lawyer. May I have your side of the story?” He now explains to me his alibi for January 4th, “I was out at the club with some friends,” He explains, “but I started feeling sick after drinking that cheap hand sanitizer tequila, so I went home at about 2 in the morning. After that, I woke up at about 6 o’clock to go to work, so as I was driving down the highway on interstate 35, the police were doing random checks, and they pulled me over.” I nod, scribbling down notes as he speaks. “So I pulled over, and the police used the breathalyzer on me, which was weird because it was 6 in the morning, and I didn’t party that hard. So I did the test, and I was clear. They then informed me that they were looking for a black male, about 6’2’, to match a police sketch of a murder suspect, and what do you know, I fit the bill! So they took me down to the station and questioned me for hours. I kept trying to tell them that I didn’t want to speak until I had a lawyer present, but they ignored me and tried to get me to sign a confession, but that’s where I drew the line, and I said that if I didn’t get a lawyer I would not say a single word more, so now we’re here.” “Wow,” I mutter under my breath, “This’ll be fun.”
After Khalil finishes his story, I inform him of my plan of attack. We’ll need to wait a couple of months before the forensic evidence has come back from “TGC,” the “Testing Grounds of Intervened Cytology.” Still, until then, we need to find other evidence and people to back up his alibi for that night. “Who were you with on the night of January 4th?” I ask. He looks wistfully at the wall, thinking, “I was with my girlfriend Valerie, my best friend Jake, his boyfriend Gabriel, and a couple of other friends, but I don’t remember their names.” This was enough information to confirm his alibi, but we needed to find those three main people he hung out with that night, so I asked him to bring them in when we meet again. So we say goodbye, and he leaves. Now I need to review the information and evidence we have so far, but I might have to have a little chat with those police officers because they violated his right to plead the fifth and his right to not self incriminate, and that’s a pretty good case to bring up in court.
It’s January 12th, and I’m expecting Khalil and his friends to arrive today, so I sit and play Tetris on my computer until they get here, and hopefully, like this game, all the pieces of this case will fit together. Kahlil and his friends arrive about thirty minutes later, so I go downstairs and collect them to come to my office. They all sit down, and I introduce myself to Valerie, Jake, and Gabriel. Valerie catches my eye straight away, twirling her dark pink hair around her finger. It looks like it took a lot of convincing for her to come here, so I try to be nice and hope she doesn’t just get up and walk out. I ask them the regular questions, like “Where were you on the night of January 4th?” and, “Do you know who Kaylee White is?” To which they reply that they were with Kahlil that night and that they had heard of Kaylee White, but only on the news.
The stories from all three of Kahlil’s friends match his alibi, but if not Kahlil, then who? After chatting with Valerie, Jake, and Gabriel, I head down to the sheriff's department; I want to see what they have to say. As soon as I get down there, Deputy Moore is waiting for me, he’s leading this case, and I want to see what new evidence he has for me; surprisingly, he’s quite unbiased for a middle-aged white cop investigating a black man, but the break of racial bias is very refreshing, and it’s a pleasure to work with him. We take a seat in his office and exchange greetings, but we’ve worked together on a couple of other cases, so we both know to cut to the point. “I’ll tell you all I know!” he blurts out. Geez, that was not the reaction I was expecting. It’s like something was almost stopping him from telling me anything, but Deputy Moore is an unpredictable guy, so I brush it off. He continues, “We have the autopsy report back, and it shows that Kaylee White died from blunt force trauma to the head, and it looks like the weapon could be something like a baseball bat, but nothing is ever for sure, but we do think that this was a personal attack because her injuries were extensive, showing that the perpetrator, or perpetrators, had a problem with her, meaning the motive was probably inconvenience or hatred, other things that back this up, was that she was 12 at the time of the attack, so the motive most likely wasn’t money or protection, but this leaves a bunch of other motives. As well as all this good psychological evidence from the psychology department, the DNA has come back, and we’re currently working on making a DNA phenotype from it.” when he finishes, I think to myself, “This is a lot of information, more than enough for this early in the case.” So I say goodbye, arrange a date to meet next, and now, you would think that we have all the evidence and the job is done, but it’s only just begun.
The next meeting with Deputy Moore is in 3 days, on January 15rh. Until then, I need to review the files….AGAIN. I’m reviewing the files when something catches my eye. On one of the last pages, it says that one of the White family’s neighbors had seen something. On the day of the murder, they saw a white man, with a black balaclava and all-black clothes. This description doesn’t match the composite, so while I meet with the Deputy, I must ask where they got that sketch from and who provided the info to make it.
When I meet up with Deputy Moore, he tells me that they had a witness come forward to provide some information, I ask who they were, but apparently, they can in from an anonymous tip line. This doesn’t seem right to me, though, because the police sketch artist usually has to meet up with the witness to make a sketch, but I’m not the detective, so I just have to trust them. The Deputy also informs me that the DNA phenotype has come back. He shows me the sketch, and it indicates something weird. This doesn’t add up. The phenotype is of a white male, and it doesn’t match with anyone in the White family or anyone they know was there before the murder. The fingerprints have also come back after being plugged into CODIS with no luck, so that’s not a viable lead, but this new phenotype is, so now they have to search for someone to match it, and I can try and clear Kahlil.
It’s been a couple of months after my meeting with Deputy Moore, and the police have a couple of other people of interest. Daniel Reed, James Fray, Micheal Shen, and Marty Bengel, each of which math the new description, the only things left are to interview them, collect and check their fingerprints against that found at the crime scene, see what their relationship to the White family is, and what their motive and/ or reason would be for committing this heinous crime. Both James and Daniel seem suspicious to the police, but it could just be the pressure of being interviewed and questioned. The fingerprints should come back in about 3-5 days, which means that if one matches, we can go to court soon and put the monster that killed Kaylee White to justice.
Today is January 1st, the estimated time that the DNA should come back with the outcome, and when I go down to the station, to say that Deputy Moore was ecstatic would be an understatement. He’s beaming at me as I walk into his office, looking like a 7-year old that just got to meet Iron Man, and when I sit down, the glint of joy in his eye is more like a torch being shined into my face. The second I orchestrate my Brobdingnagian mess of files into one nice pile, he starts talking at the speed of light. “So, as you know, the DNA has come back, and we have a match! James Fray’s DNA matches that of which was found at the crime scene, we now have him in custody, but you still need to help fight to keep him in there for good!” He stops abruptly, almost out of breath, but I know deep down that he could keep talking till’ the world implodes. I take a moment to comprehend this news, knowing that this was the case-breaker that we needed. However, even though this was joyous news, I still can’t fathom how this case was solved so quickly and why Kahlil was even a person of interest from the start since the perpetrator was white, so who did the witness think they saw?
The witness, 43-year-old Bettie Winston, had seen this man- the one that Kahlil fitted the description of- walking down the street and into an alleyway near the White’s house at 2:00 am, carrying what seemed to be a bin bag. Even though this was a good lead at the time, we now know that the suspect is a white male, but this man could have seemed of African American descent in the wee hours of the morning. Moving forward after that, the little tidbit of a lead fizzled out, even then, some of the officers working the case seemed to hook onto it and aren’t willing to let it go, so much so that these officers won’t help with anything other than investigating the black man seen near the White’s house that night, even if Deputy Moore offers to do a parallel investigation!
Today is April 22nd, the day of Kahlil’s hearing. I wake up at five, shower, put my suit on,
spritz some cologne on my neck, and hop in my black Mercedes to drive to the courthouse. Two burly security guards greet me when I enter the door and check my id. After I’m cleared, I head to the main courtroom and take my place in the designated seat that I was given before the hearing. A couple of other people are already here, and we wait in silence until everybody else arrives. The first part is the witness testimony of Bettie, she states that the person that she saw on the night of January 4th was almost definitely Kahlil, but I know that an eyewitness isn’t always a reliable source for many reasons such as biases, so I know how to attack her argument without blatantly ignoring her side of the story.
After I poked holes in the prosecuting argument, I needed to place my argument, and the DNA was an obvious start. “Your honor, it has come to the attention of the officers working this case that DNA was present at the scene of the crime, as well as just being present. It was also in a big enough quantity to test. The results have come back of recent and were turned into a phenotype, which showed a white male. With the defendant being black, this information doesn’t add up, proving that Kahlil Sencona was not the DNA match. Even with this new knowledge, a handful of officers kept clinging on to the idea that Kahlil was their guy, proving a racial bias against the defendant. Four lookalikes of the phenotype - Daniel Reed, James Fray, Micheal Shen, and Marty Bengel- were taken down to the station, where their DNA and fingerprints were collected, then tested to see if they had a match to that found at the crime scene. It took a while, but eventually, it came back as a hit to James Fray, meaning that it can’t have been Kahlil Sencona at the crime scene on January 4th, this is convincing enough, but even then, he has friends to back up his alibi.” I then introduce the jury to Valerie, Jake, and Gabriel, let them testify, then the jury deliberates.
The deliberation lasted two days, coming back with a verdict, finding Kahlil Sencona not guilty. The racial bias was a barrier, but we broke it and freed an innocent man.
As I walk through the dull, grey office, I can pretty much smell the lack of sleep as the keyboards clack, clack, clack away. Black coffee in hand, I stroll over to my desk and slump into my seat, its flimsy plastic creaking under my weight, I look over to see a bright, yellow sticky note sitting on my desk, it reads; “New case, file in the drawer” scribbled in a red biro. I check the drawer, and sure enough, there sits a sad, beige file. I open it up and right away get to work, as I read the tiny print, I jot down some notes on my notepad.
“Now this is a murder scene like never before”, I introspect. The police and forensic investigators found a bloody sock, an empty wallet, AND the murder weapon, not only that, but it had traces of DNA, just enough to send in for testing, however, that takes a long time, but in the meantime, the police have a suspect.
A young man, probably early ’20s, sits before me with a maroon durag and caramel skin. A tall police officer informs me that his name is Khalil Sencona, and they think he killed 12-year-old Kaylee White. It would be rude not to, so I introduce myself, “Hello Mr. Sencona, I’m Jamie Francis, I work with “Pink Orange Legal Co.”, and I will be your lawyer. May I have your side of the story?” He now explains to me his alibi for January 4th, “I was out at the club with some friends,” He explains, “but I started feeling sick after drinking that cheap hand sanitizer tequila, so I went home at about 2 in the morning. After that, I woke up at about 6 o’clock to go to work, so as I was driving down the highway on interstate 35, the police were doing random checks, and they pulled me over.” I nod, scribbling down notes as he speaks. “So I pulled over, and the police used the breathalyzer on me, which was weird because it was 6 in the morning, and I didn’t party that hard. So I did the test, and I was clear. They then informed me that they were looking for a black male, about 6’2’, to match a police sketch of a murder suspect, and what do you know, I fit the bill! So they took me down to the station and questioned me for hours. I kept trying to tell them that I didn’t want to speak until I had a lawyer present, but they ignored me and tried to get me to sign a confession, but that’s where I drew the line, and I said that if I didn’t get a lawyer I would not say a single word more, so now we’re here.” “Wow,” I mutter under my breath, “This’ll be fun.”
After Khalil finishes his story, I inform him of my plan of attack. We’ll need to wait a couple of months before the forensic evidence has come back from “TGC,” the “Testing Grounds of Intervened Cytology.” Still, until then, we need to find other evidence and people to back up his alibi for that night. “Who were you with on the night of January 4th?” I ask. He looks wistfully at the wall, thinking, “I was with my girlfriend Valerie, my best friend Jake, his boyfriend Gabriel, and a couple of other friends, but I don’t remember their names.” This was enough information to confirm his alibi, but we needed to find those three main people he hung out with that night, so I asked him to bring them in when we meet again. So we say goodbye, and he leaves. Now I need to review the information and evidence we have so far, but I might have to have a little chat with those police officers because they violated his right to plead the fifth and his right to not self incriminate, and that’s a pretty good case to bring up in court.
It’s January 12th, and I’m expecting Khalil and his friends to arrive today, so I sit and play Tetris on my computer until they get here, and hopefully, like this game, all the pieces of this case will fit together. Kahlil and his friends arrive about thirty minutes later, so I go downstairs and collect them to come to my office. They all sit down, and I introduce myself to Valerie, Jake, and Gabriel. Valerie catches my eye straight away, twirling her dark pink hair around her finger. It looks like it took a lot of convincing for her to come here, so I try to be nice and hope she doesn’t just get up and walk out. I ask them the regular questions, like “Where were you on the night of January 4th?” and, “Do you know who Kaylee White is?” To which they reply that they were with Kahlil that night and that they had heard of Kaylee White, but only on the news.
The stories from all three of Kahlil’s friends match his alibi, but if not Kahlil, then who? After chatting with Valerie, Jake, and Gabriel, I head down to the sheriff's department; I want to see what they have to say. As soon as I get down there, Deputy Moore is waiting for me, he’s leading this case, and I want to see what new evidence he has for me; surprisingly, he’s quite unbiased for a middle-aged white cop investigating a black man, but the break of racial bias is very refreshing, and it’s a pleasure to work with him. We take a seat in his office and exchange greetings, but we’ve worked together on a couple of other cases, so we both know to cut to the point. “I’ll tell you all I know!” he blurts out. Geez, that was not the reaction I was expecting. It’s like something was almost stopping him from telling me anything, but Deputy Moore is an unpredictable guy, so I brush it off. He continues, “We have the autopsy report back, and it shows that Kaylee White died from blunt force trauma to the head, and it looks like the weapon could be something like a baseball bat, but nothing is ever for sure, but we do think that this was a personal attack because her injuries were extensive, showing that the perpetrator, or perpetrators, had a problem with her, meaning the motive was probably inconvenience or hatred, other things that back this up, was that she was 12 at the time of the attack, so the motive most likely wasn’t money or protection, but this leaves a bunch of other motives. As well as all this good psychological evidence from the psychology department, the DNA has come back, and we’re currently working on making a DNA phenotype from it.” when he finishes, I think to myself, “This is a lot of information, more than enough for this early in the case.” So I say goodbye, arrange a date to meet next, and now, you would think that we have all the evidence and the job is done, but it’s only just begun.
The next meeting with Deputy Moore is in 3 days, on January 15rh. Until then, I need to review the files….AGAIN. I’m reviewing the files when something catches my eye. On one of the last pages, it says that one of the White family’s neighbors had seen something. On the day of the murder, they saw a white man, with a black balaclava and all-black clothes. This description doesn’t match the composite, so while I meet with the Deputy, I must ask where they got that sketch from and who provided the info to make it.
When I meet up with Deputy Moore, he tells me that they had a witness come forward to provide some information, I ask who they were, but apparently, they can in from an anonymous tip line. This doesn’t seem right to me, though, because the police sketch artist usually has to meet up with the witness to make a sketch, but I’m not the detective, so I just have to trust them. The Deputy also informs me that the DNA phenotype has come back. He shows me the sketch, and it indicates something weird. This doesn’t add up. The phenotype is of a white male, and it doesn’t match with anyone in the White family or anyone they know was there before the murder. The fingerprints have also come back after being plugged into CODIS with no luck, so that’s not a viable lead, but this new phenotype is, so now they have to search for someone to match it, and I can try and clear Kahlil.
It’s been a couple of months after my meeting with Deputy Moore, and the police have a couple of other people of interest. Daniel Reed, James Fray, Micheal Shen, and Marty Bengel, each of which math the new description, the only things left are to interview them, collect and check their fingerprints against that found at the crime scene, see what their relationship to the White family is, and what their motive and/ or reason would be for committing this heinous crime. Both James and Daniel seem suspicious to the police, but it could just be the pressure of being interviewed and questioned. The fingerprints should come back in about 3-5 days, which means that if one matches, we can go to court soon and put the monster that killed Kaylee White to justice.
Today is January 1st, the estimated time that the DNA should come back with the outcome, and when I go down to the station, to say that Deputy Moore was ecstatic would be an understatement. He’s beaming at me as I walk into his office, looking like a 7-year old that just got to meet Iron Man, and when I sit down, the glint of joy in his eye is more like a torch being shined into my face. The second I orchestrate my Brobdingnagian mess of files into one nice pile, he starts talking at the speed of light. “So, as you know, the DNA has come back, and we have a match! James Fray’s DNA matches that of which was found at the crime scene, we now have him in custody, but you still need to help fight to keep him in there for good!” He stops abruptly, almost out of breath, but I know deep down that he could keep talking till’ the world implodes. I take a moment to comprehend this news, knowing that this was the case-breaker that we needed. However, even though this was joyous news, I still can’t fathom how this case was solved so quickly and why Kahlil was even a person of interest from the start since the perpetrator was white, so who did the witness think they saw?
The witness, 43-year-old Bettie Winston, had seen this man- the one that Kahlil fitted the description of- walking down the street and into an alleyway near the White’s house at 2:00 am, carrying what seemed to be a bin bag. Even though this was a good lead at the time, we now know that the suspect is a white male, but this man could have seemed of African American descent in the wee hours of the morning. Moving forward after that, the little tidbit of a lead fizzled out, even then, some of the officers working the case seemed to hook onto it and aren’t willing to let it go, so much so that these officers won’t help with anything other than investigating the black man seen near the White’s house that night, even if Deputy Moore offers to do a parallel investigation!
Today is April 22nd, the day of Kahlil’s hearing. I wake up at five, shower, put my suit on,
spritz some cologne on my neck, and hop in my black Mercedes to drive to the courthouse. Two burly security guards greet me when I enter the door and check my id. After I’m cleared, I head to the main courtroom and take my place in the designated seat that I was given before the hearing. A couple of other people are already here, and we wait in silence until everybody else arrives. The first part is the witness testimony of Bettie, she states that the person that she saw on the night of January 4th was almost definitely Kahlil, but I know that an eyewitness isn’t always a reliable source for many reasons such as biases, so I know how to attack her argument without blatantly ignoring her side of the story.
After I poked holes in the prosecuting argument, I needed to place my argument, and the DNA was an obvious start. “Your honor, it has come to the attention of the officers working this case that DNA was present at the scene of the crime, as well as just being present. It was also in a big enough quantity to test. The results have come back of recent and were turned into a phenotype, which showed a white male. With the defendant being black, this information doesn’t add up, proving that Kahlil Sencona was not the DNA match. Even with this new knowledge, a handful of officers kept clinging on to the idea that Kahlil was their guy, proving a racial bias against the defendant. Four lookalikes of the phenotype - Daniel Reed, James Fray, Micheal Shen, and Marty Bengel- were taken down to the station, where their DNA and fingerprints were collected, then tested to see if they had a match to that found at the crime scene. It took a while, but eventually, it came back as a hit to James Fray, meaning that it can’t have been Kahlil Sencona at the crime scene on January 4th, this is convincing enough, but even then, he has friends to back up his alibi.” I then introduce the jury to Valerie, Jake, and Gabriel, let them testify, then the jury deliberates.
The deliberation lasted two days, coming back with a verdict, finding Kahlil Sencona not guilty. The racial bias was a barrier, but we broke it and freed an innocent man.
Ava Franchione's Nonfiction Essay
How the Judicial Branch reflects the Rights of US Citizens
Ten years trapped in an inescapable prison. Ten years of lost time. Wasted. I recently saw a man named Ryan Ferguson on a show called The Amazing Race. The show introduced him as a wrongfully convicted person who was jailed for 10 years and wanted to make up for the lost time by being a part of the Amazing Race. I wanted to look into his story a bit more, which eventually lead to me researching stories of other wrongfully convicted people. All these stories showed how important it is to provide accused persons with procedural rights, how the court system protects our rights, and how important it is for the judicial system to be diverse so it can be trusted.
To begin with, it is important to provide accused persons with the right to trial. For instance, CBS News: Ryan Ferguson on life and “The Amazing Race” divulges “I… know, almost certainly, that if you had not covered the trial, a lot of the facts would still remain probably hidden.” What we can learn from this is that a trial is an important part of determining whether someone is innocent or guilty. In Ryan’s case, he was wrongly accused. Without a sufficient trial, he would have stayed in jail for much longer, guilty for something he didn’t do. Additionally, Equal Justice Initiative: Wrongful convictions mentions, “Innocent people have been convicted because forensic lab workings made errors in testing, testified inaccurately about their results, or fabricated results.” Not only is a trial needed so people don’t just believe the victim or a witness, but also because there may be scientific mistakes. To explain, wrong fingerprints, items, liquids, etc. Procedural rights provide mostly accurate results so no mistake is made, making it fair for every person.
Furthermore, the US Court System protects our rights in several ways. For example, an excerpt from Alexander Hamilton's Federalist Paper No. 78 explains, “Limitations of this kind can be preserved in practice no other way than through the medium of carts of justice, whose duty it must be to declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void. Without this, all the reservations of particular rights or privileges would amount to nothing.” One can see by this that the court system must not violate rights in the constitution because if they were violated, these rights would mean nothing. The court generally does a good job of not violating these rights and if they did, the government would be corrupt. Moreover, Saving Ryan Ferguson: One lawyer’s story demonstrates that “Zellner makes a living taking the cases other lawyers don’t want.” To circle back to Ryan, when a lawyer can not be hired or provided, the defendant will most likely not win the case and be jailed. People like Kathleen Zellner in the judiciary help Ferguson in his case. Of course, the court system makes mistakes but overall does an excellent job protecting our rights for all kinds of people.
Finally, the judicial system should contain a diverse group of people and represent the community. To explain, Building a More Inclusive Federal Judiciary portrays, “Increasing diversity on the federal branch help address these concerns and foster greater trust in the judiciary.” In this case, people have a hard time trusting the judicial system when it only consists of one or two types of people. There are many concerns when people are hired or appointed based on race, ethnicity, gender, etc. Additionally, another article indicates “the committee stressed that diversity incorporates a number of other elements including disability, sexual orientation, the legal profession, and social background and rejected any notion that those from under-represented groups are less worthy candidates or that a more diverse judiciary would undermine the quality of our judges.” The idea that not only the judicial system but everything else in today’s world is making decisions based on these categories is commonly known. The judiciary can be hated and not trusted when it doesn’t contain different types of people.
Overall, many people can learn that is it important for citizens to have the right to a trial, for the U.S. court system to protect our rights, and that the judicial branch should represent the community at large. Ryan Ferguson’s story along with many others has shown me that these are important in times of change. This branch of the US Federal system really helps to form a more perfect union.
How the Judicial Branch reflects the Rights of US Citizens
Ten years trapped in an inescapable prison. Ten years of lost time. Wasted. I recently saw a man named Ryan Ferguson on a show called The Amazing Race. The show introduced him as a wrongfully convicted person who was jailed for 10 years and wanted to make up for the lost time by being a part of the Amazing Race. I wanted to look into his story a bit more, which eventually lead to me researching stories of other wrongfully convicted people. All these stories showed how important it is to provide accused persons with procedural rights, how the court system protects our rights, and how important it is for the judicial system to be diverse so it can be trusted.
To begin with, it is important to provide accused persons with the right to trial. For instance, CBS News: Ryan Ferguson on life and “The Amazing Race” divulges “I… know, almost certainly, that if you had not covered the trial, a lot of the facts would still remain probably hidden.” What we can learn from this is that a trial is an important part of determining whether someone is innocent or guilty. In Ryan’s case, he was wrongly accused. Without a sufficient trial, he would have stayed in jail for much longer, guilty for something he didn’t do. Additionally, Equal Justice Initiative: Wrongful convictions mentions, “Innocent people have been convicted because forensic lab workings made errors in testing, testified inaccurately about their results, or fabricated results.” Not only is a trial needed so people don’t just believe the victim or a witness, but also because there may be scientific mistakes. To explain, wrong fingerprints, items, liquids, etc. Procedural rights provide mostly accurate results so no mistake is made, making it fair for every person.
Furthermore, the US Court System protects our rights in several ways. For example, an excerpt from Alexander Hamilton's Federalist Paper No. 78 explains, “Limitations of this kind can be preserved in practice no other way than through the medium of carts of justice, whose duty it must be to declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void. Without this, all the reservations of particular rights or privileges would amount to nothing.” One can see by this that the court system must not violate rights in the constitution because if they were violated, these rights would mean nothing. The court generally does a good job of not violating these rights and if they did, the government would be corrupt. Moreover, Saving Ryan Ferguson: One lawyer’s story demonstrates that “Zellner makes a living taking the cases other lawyers don’t want.” To circle back to Ryan, when a lawyer can not be hired or provided, the defendant will most likely not win the case and be jailed. People like Kathleen Zellner in the judiciary help Ferguson in his case. Of course, the court system makes mistakes but overall does an excellent job protecting our rights for all kinds of people.
Finally, the judicial system should contain a diverse group of people and represent the community. To explain, Building a More Inclusive Federal Judiciary portrays, “Increasing diversity on the federal branch help address these concerns and foster greater trust in the judiciary.” In this case, people have a hard time trusting the judicial system when it only consists of one or two types of people. There are many concerns when people are hired or appointed based on race, ethnicity, gender, etc. Additionally, another article indicates “the committee stressed that diversity incorporates a number of other elements including disability, sexual orientation, the legal profession, and social background and rejected any notion that those from under-represented groups are less worthy candidates or that a more diverse judiciary would undermine the quality of our judges.” The idea that not only the judicial system but everything else in today’s world is making decisions based on these categories is commonly known. The judiciary can be hated and not trusted when it doesn’t contain different types of people.
Overall, many people can learn that is it important for citizens to have the right to a trial, for the U.S. court system to protect our rights, and that the judicial branch should represent the community at large. Ryan Ferguson’s story along with many others has shown me that these are important in times of change. This branch of the US Federal system really helps to form a more perfect union.