Law Of The Twelve Tables: An Analysis

Improved Essays
Law originated from majority’s habit, and intended to raise fairness and justice to the world. Just like Roman Empire desired to reinforce its strength by using Law of the Twelve Tables. This ‘code’ from Ancient Rome mainly based on their behavior and their social value back then. However, as more and more people attracted to Rome, the main purpose of this law had been twisted. They began used this law to reinforce their autocracy and oppression toward slaves and women. Just like the case I have read in Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, law is supposed to protect human right for every racist. However, in the book, law becomes a weapon toward African American, Tom Robinson. Accusing him as a rapist without any evidence but only because he is black. White people are dominating the court with a prejudice toward African American. They totally forget about a person should be innocent …show more content…
However, as my evaluation skill improved throughout my Economic and Geography studies, this question is getting harder for me to answer it. I do not mean I lose my interest on this kind of question, but actually I began to answer it with more balanced details. I even try to use inductive, deductive, or analytic reasoning that I have learn in Theory of Knowledge to balance the question critically. Also, I am more enjoyable to balance my opinion out and even continue to build on it with some solid evidences, such as in Twelve Angry Men; it had shown the superficial evidence could mislead the judgment in the court. Also, the way of expressing opinion is important. Juror 8 had used its own way to persuade the rest of the jurors in the jury to find out the truth. I learn to understand the case with different perspectives just like Juror 8 did in the play. All of those skills will helped me to have a better foundation in making analytical, reasonable and clear thoughts independently in my further study in

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Tom Robinson, a character in To Kill A Mockingbird, is incessantly looked down upon due to his skin color, a factor that he has no control over. The story depicts Tom being accused of a crime that he didn’t commit. All due to the community assuming that it’s typical for a negro man to undertake a felony, he’s forced to suffer through unwanted and undeserved hardships. Tom haplessly had the disadvantage of being a colored man. “‘In our courts, when it's a white man's word against a black man's, the white man always wins.’”…

    • 242 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    During the 1930’s there was a case of white people against black boys in the town of Paint Rock, AL (Ransdall).” This case was known as The Scottsboro Trials. A novel written by Harper Lee titled To Kill a Mockingbird has a similar plot in which a black man, or Negro, was accused of raping a white woman (Lee). Both of these stories have similarities and parallels that are interesting to indulge in. The social characteristics, stigmas, and opinions if superiority influence the behaviors and decisions of those involved in both trials.…

    • 1677 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    There is a lot of people that are killed just because of false trials. Life isn’t always fair. There is going to be innocents killed and young blacks killed because their black. Justice is always served in mysterious ways. There has been many trials were no fair trials for blacks just because of their color.…

    • 695 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Racism has been a prominent controversial issue in our society through out the years. It is the act of categorizing people based on their race, religion, and/or appearance. This discrimination has created an unethical world were people have become unaware of their actions and judgement towards others. The author, Jennifer Gonnerman, in the article “Before the Law” claims that the justice system allowed an African American teen to be wrongfully sentenced and dismissed due to the color of his skin. Kalief Browder was sent to prison based on charges that were not reliable.…

    • 1462 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In this paper I will discuss how these two codes contributed to the laws of Western Civilization, what scripture says about law and justice and how these examples are evidence that or fall short of the Biblical standard. The Code of Hammurabi and the Twelve Tables were sets of laws established long ago in two different time periods and despite their differences they share a lot in common. The Code of Hammurabi and the Twelve Tables basically established the foundation for todays justice system and laws. They established how people should be protected from the powers of others, what was considered acceptable and not acceptable by laws and what would happen if these laws were broken. The Code of Hammurabi was more detailed while the Twelve…

    • 867 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Code of Hammurabi Reading Response 1. Laws are critical to any society; in The Code of Hammurabi this criticality is stated in the introduction where it is said that law is in place “…to destroy the wicked and the evil-doers; so that the strong should not harm the weak…” (The Code of Hammurabi 1) and to “…further the well-being of mankind” (1). These laws, had such an emphasis on protecting the weak that it is emphasized that the one to enforce said laws would be the “…shepherd of the oppressed and of the slaves…” (3). Protection of the weak, oppressed, and of the slaves is only done in a centralized and static rule, the rule of law – for the benefit of all.…

    • 710 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Mockingbird Vs Simpson

    • 1722 Words
    • 7 Pages

    “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." In To Kill A Mockingbird, Tom Robinson was wrongly accused of a crime he did not commit. In an era where the privilege of life, liberty, freedom, and due process of law depended on your race; a black man’s word against a white man’s word could end in death. Harper Lee brilliantly depicted the prejudice and segregation in the fictional town of Maycomb. Orenthal James Simpson was also an African-American and he was convicted of a double murder in…

    • 1722 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Upon studying the laws of ancient Babylon, it is apparent that the civilization took a tough on crime approach with serious concerns for social order and control. The Law Code of Hammurabi (ca. 1800 B.C.E.) sought to bring justice to ancient Babylon “so that the strong should not harm the weak” (Strayer 95). In some ways, the codes negate the above intention through class divides, gender inequality, and familial punishments. Gender and social class hierarchies determined how crimes would be punished, therefore demonstrating how Babylonian society valued external social controls and normative family structures for societal functioning.…

    • 534 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Hammurabi’s code and the Twelve Tables were both codes of law used in ancient times. Even though Hammurabi’s code and the Twelve Tables were made about one thousand years apart they have many similarities and differences. To start with, the Twelve Tables are very similar to Hammurabi’s code, most likely due to the fact that Romans assimilated different cultures into their own. Both Hammurabi’s code and Roman law did not believe in equal rights for everyone especially people of lower social classes. For example, in Hammurabi’s code if a man puts out the eye of someone of a higher rank than his eye will be put out, but if a man puts out the eye of a slave “he shall pay half of that slave’s price.”…

    • 315 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Imagine mixing a hot room and a jury full of very different people. It can be thought that the outcome is not the most civilized, and neither are the people. The book Twelve Angry Men by Reginald Rose is a great example of this. And out of all jurors, the 7th is particularly interesting. Throughout the play, different factors influence a lot about what his decision is, and how he starts to act around the rest of the jury.…

    • 570 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Historical Influences on To Kill a Mockingbird During the 1930’s, there were many changes taking place in the United States. Segregation was still a dominant obstacle, and the economy took a sharp downfall. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee uses real-life occurrences to build the background for her story. There are many correlations between the Jim Crow laws, mob mentality, and the Scottsboro trials in the book.…

    • 1098 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Juror #8 In the play “Twelve Angry Men” the Juror No.8 was a very important character, without him there would not have been any conflict and the young boy would have been executed without a proper trial. An Architect by profession, he stood out from the rest of jurors. He had the gift for intuitive thinking, understanding complex human relationships and inspiring others. He believed in trial-by-jury system and did his best to have the necessary procedures to come up with a fair outcome.…

    • 1100 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Racism had made Robinson’s fate of dead inevitable. “Tom was a dead man the minute Mayella Ewell opened her mouth and screamed”. In the particular place and time, it was simply because Tom was black and Mayella was white. In the era of 1930s, the whites had overwhelming power over the blacks who were seldom protected by law. Although Atticus did a brilliant job to expose Bob Ewell and his daughter’s lies and convinced most people that Tom Robinson was closer to innocence than sin, and it took extra effort and time for the jury to make a verdict, the sentence was still guilty, due to the predominance of racist opinion at that time.…

    • 841 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In To Kill A Mockingbird racial profiling is seen in the Tom Robinson court case. In this trial, Tom Robinson, a black man, was accused of raping a white girl. Due to the high amounts of of racism and stereotypes, Tom was wrongly convicted even though all of the evidence proved his innocence. “Now don’t you be so confident, Mr. Jem, I ain’t ever seen any jury decide in favor of a colored man over a white man…”(208) This shows that profiling people based on looks was a big deal, and many colored people got falsely accused of things they never did.…

    • 802 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the article Scottsboro Boys and To Kill a Mockingbird: Two Trials for the Classroom it stated that, “The lessons of the infamous 1930s Scottsboro Boys case in which two young white women wrongfully accused nine African American youths of rape illustrate through fact what Harper Lee tried to instruct through her fiction”. Black people were always accused from white people and the judge will always believe the white race, they were considered criminals, barbarians and savage. Also in the article “To Kill a Mockingbird”: Two Trials for the Classroom it stated that, “Both historical and fictional trials express the courage required to stand up for the Constitutional principle providing for equal justice to all under the law.” This quote shows that in the fictional story displayed the injustice that black people…

    • 766 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays