On the 10th of February 1963, a murder case was discovered.
A 17-year-old girl named Rosemary Anderson was killed in a major car accident and was left alone on the side of the road by her murderer who was unknown at the time. Her 19-year-old boyfriend named John Button had found her unconscious on the side of the road and took her to the emergency department. John was instantly accused of her murder without further investigations. John was beaten intensely for an extreme amount of time until he lied and confessed that he is guilty of the murder of his girlfriend Rosemary Anderson. He did five yearsor so in prison and was let out after his time. The outcome of this was that John was not guilty and did not commit this murder and the real murderer did end up confessing, his name was Eric Edgar Cooke. This is because after John struggled with five long years in prison, Eric confessed the murder of Rosemary Anderson confessed that he did commit the murder and that it was not John Button. In my paragraphs I will be explaining how a few principles of justice have either supported or not supported this case.
The principle of justice “Burden and standard of proof” was certainly not supported in the events of this case. This is an extremely important principle of justice as it is how the quality of proof and investigating is conducted in a certain case. If we did not have a somewhat reasonable standard of proof the case would not be a fair trial. There were extremely low standards of evidence and proof when John Button was accused and found guilty. This was an unfair way to find out who the murderer is as they had beaten the accused and brutely hurt him therefore he either had a chance to die by being beaten or to be guilty of the murder of his girlfriend which they had not thoroughly investigated.
Secondly, the principle of justice “Right to appeal” was certainly not supported in this case as John Button did not have a say nor did John Button have somewhat of support in what he had to say. Having the right to appeal is very important as we must hear what the accused has to say. It is not fair that he did not get to speak up and say what in his eyes had happened. He could not speak due to the pain he was going through because he was beaten and had no choice but to confess which is certainly unreasonable and unfair. In addition, the car was not examined, and no other suspects were investigated.
A final principle of justice that was not supported was “innocent until proven guilty”. This case was not supported with this principle of justice as John Button was instantly accused that he was guilty without investigating the murder scene fairly and accurately. This is a seriously important principle of justice as someone should not instantly be accused without a very high standard of proof. For example, they did not accuse anyone except John as the culprit.
A single principle of justice that was supported in this case was “equal treatment” as John Button was treated like they treated every other straight white male was treated. In this case, the event has happened 50 years ago, and this was when white people had more rights to colored people and as he was a male, they instantly accused him of the murder.
In conclusion, I believe that this case of the death of seventeen-year-old Rosemary Anderson was not a fair, accurate, or supported case. John Button was instantly accused of the murder, there was an extremely low standard of investigating and proof and finally, he did not say what he wanted or appeal to this case due to his torcher in prison. This was entirely unfair and a complete misunderstanding from the judge and the courts.
