- For minor crimes, most states have a “statute of limitations” that prohibits bringing charges when a certain period of time has elapsed since the crime. When it comes to serious crimes, is it right for the justice system to pursue criminal charges several decades after the crime is said to have occurred?
Yes, it is right and appropriate for the justice system to pursue criminal charges several decades after the crime was committed, especially serious crimes like murder. In most of these cold cases which are archived and looked through decades later, there is often a lack of evidence, witnesses and/or clues. I watched a television programme about the solving of cold crimes and prosecution of criminals which were committed some 30 years ago on Crime and Investigation last weekend. In one of the crimes, fingerprints, blood and stains were found on the pantyhose which was used as the murder weapon to strangle the victim. Due to a lack of technology in the past, the blood stains could not be tested for DNA and the criminal went scot free. However, the DNA tests of today allowed the police to track down the criminal and he was charged with manslaughter. From this example, prosecuting these criminals is the right thing to do as the constraints of the past could have prevented a criminal from receiving his dutiful punishment.
- Reporting for The Times on the conviction of Edgar Ray Killen in 2005, Shaila Dewan wrote, “While some in Neshoba County [Mississippi] said it was too late and too painful to revisit the episode, others thought that in doing so, the county might find redemption.” What do you think: was the state’s image “rehabilitated”?
Although I never lived through the civil war and only learn about it through movies, books and articles, I understand some of the horrors of the civil war in America. The Civil Rights Activists, both black and white, risked their lives to fight for the rights and equality of the African Americans and it was a noble deed to do so. Many of the people who killed and lynched the civil rights activists should be put on trial and severely punished. Mississippi did the right thing to convict the criminal and some credit should be given to them for punishing him even after decades of the painful memory; the state’s image should be allowed redemption.
- How much do you know about the civil rights era in general?
The Civil Rights Era was a period of time from 1865-1970 in American for the struggle to give equality and civil rights to all Americans. There were attempts to give equality to the African Americans like the Ku Klux Klan Act, and the Civil Rights Acts of 1866 and 1875 but most of the whites in the South kept the Blacks as inferior to them with the Black Codes and the Compromise of 1877. The Blacks continued to be discriminated in the country.
After many protests, strikes, riots, marches, massacres, assassinations, and various movements across the country, the Civil Rights Acts of 1957, 1964 and 1968 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the African Americans were given their full civil rights and were treated equally with the other Americans. Among the numerous incidents which occurred in America during the Civil Rights Movement, these are just some of them which contributed to the Movement: the Montgomery Bus Riots, the lynching of Blacks by the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), the role of Black churches in the Civil Rights Movement which included Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Great Migration and the Second Great Migration, the incident of the Scottsboro Boys, and the enacted Jim Crow laws.
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