Reaction to the Verdict

The verdict of the Jury was disappointing but predictable.  The Jury decided in 
favor of the defense that Mark Twain was not a racist. The vote was also unanimous. The defense deserved to win because they used good evidence and choose characters to support their side for the most part.One thing I wish we had done differently was chosen different characters for our witnesses. A lot of the people in the Jury said we didn’t choose good witnesses because they were not believable characters which is true because Pap was drunk and the King was a conman. The Jury said that for the most part they ignored what the King and Pap had to say because they were not believable characters.  However, Jim was a good character to use in favor of our argument. We had him talk about how he didn’t think that the n-word was a bad word and how he didn’t think there was anything wrong with him being mistreated. The Jury thought that that hurt our case a great deal. It is actually what we wanted Jim to do because we thought it would show that he had a lack of education and was ignorant to his surroundings because that was what he always had to deal with. I think we should have made that more clear to the Jury instead of just assuming that they would all interpret it the same way we meant for it to appear.

Another thing that I wish we did differently was our cross examination as well as the questioning of our own witnesses.  We should have asked more questions that would help prove our case that Mark Twain was racist. I feel we actually did a very good job with the questioning of Aunt Sally and Huck because we got both of them to contradict themselves in what they were previously saying. The character that we should have focused on much more was Mark Twain. He was the most important character and the one that left the biggest impact on the Jury. We had good quotes that he had written in letters that outlined how he felt that blacks and whites were different. We talked a good amount about how he was part of the confederacy but not enough to really convince the Jury. The defense argued that the only reason that he joined the confederate side of the war was because he had no other option but they gave no evidence to what they were saying about that. I think it would have been a good move to expand upon that. We should have just done much more research on Mark Twain to find things that would really make the Jury think that he was guilty.

One thing that disappointed me was how every single person in the Jury voted in favor of the defense. It wouldn’t have bothered me but each person gave almost the exact same reason. That made it seem almost like each person did just because everyone else was. Im sure that was not the case but I would just of like to have heard a variety of different reasons why we were wrong instead of the same one repeatedly. The Jury still brought up good points that gave me an idea of what we could have done differently. It was a hard case to prove and I would defiantly do things differently if I was given the opportunity. The defense did a very good job at proving Twains innocence. They deserved to win.