Trial reflection

In the trial of State v. George Burroughs, my role was one of the prosecuters and I was then required to question, and interview witnesses and the defendant. Unfortunately, I was not as prepared for this role as I was hoping to be. I had a lot of catching up I needed to do as a result of being ill the week before. If I had the opportunity to try my role again I would take that happily. I would love to be able to do more research into the original case and into the role that the persecution plays in the courtroom. I was unable to have a smooth and comfortable closing statement and wasn’t sure what to expect in the trial as this was our first mock trial as a class. I feel that the next trial we have I will be more experienced and prepared for. I do feel that under the circumstances I was under I was able to improvise and I did the absolute best I could have and I put forth the most effort I could. As one of the prosecution lawyers I still do believe that the defense did better in this trial representing their case.

I think that the case was more comfortable to be defending Mr. Burroughs in this time because of our society now. When this case was originally brought to the courts in the late 1600’s it was more socially acceptable to believe that witches did exsist. Now most people are less religious in believing in witches and other mystical situations. I think it also may have been hard for the jury to really completely remove their bias towards the existence of witches and wizards, I think most of them believed before the trial even began that witches do not exist.

I think to improve the way our next mock trial works is to represent a case that can have two sides that are both more plausible and important in our everyday life. even a case that still holds signifigance in our world or country today, whether or not the case was yesterday or 200 years ago. Although this cases perposterous ideas helped me appreciate how lucky I am and we are as Americans to have oppurtunities to freedom of religion and speech and so many other freedoms that are unthinkable in other countries. The way the times have changed the way we think and gives us the chance to stand up for what we believe in is truly one of the most amazing things I have ever experienced. We are so privledge to live in such an open minded society, it seems like it is only up from here. In the time of this trial I can understand how something odd or uncommon can lead others to become frightened for their own life causing just a bug chain of finger pointing and false thoughts.

In America we are more fortunate then many other countries in many different aspects. One of which is our judicial system and the amendment that allows us to remain innocent until proven guilty. Yes, that is much more fair than guilty until proven innocent our system is far from flawless. Like any other laws, rules or any situation where morals and ethics get involved it is nearly impossible to find a completely fair system to protect our citizens.