Assignment 7: Jury Duty

When a group of twelve men and women come together in a courtroom, they probably have one thing on their minds: deciding your fate and determining how much longer you will be living. The idea of jury and jury duty traces back to the early sixteenth and seventeenth century, and is all too familiar to the United States. Probably one of the greatest examples of jury being used in a criminal case in history is the case of State vs. Rehberg (1885). In this case, Edward Rehberg was accused of severely beating and abusing her eleven year old daughter, Clara Rehberg, who died as a result of these beatings. Due to the evidence from the text of the case , both a twentieth century and a nineteenth century jury is not likely to convict Edward Rehberg guilty of murder.

First of all, from a twentieth century jury point of view, there is not enough evidence for Edward’s conviction. In the twentieth century, in order for a person to be convicted guilty of murder the following pieces of evidence have to be present: motive of the murder, a specific time and place of the murder, eye witness, and/or the instrument by which the person is murdered.

In Rehberg’s case, we see absolutely no motive whatsoever. After all, how can a person murder his own offspring who is just a kid of eleven and what harm could an eleven year old kid do to her family? None. Also, by today’s standards a time and place of murder has to be present. As seen in text, every witness that spoke during the trial, including Emma Rehberg and Joe Tiebow repeatedly said that Clara was inside all day long on Sunday while Edward was outside in the barn working on the haystack. In between breakfast and supper, Clara and Edward were never alone together. So, the chances of Edward beating Clara are very, very minimal.

Moreover, there is no eyewitness to the beating. Witnesses are present but they all prove the point that Clara was never alone with Edward. The weapon of the beating is not present as well. There is a short mention of the stove lifter in the barn by Joe Tiebow but according to the Physicians that were presented, Clara had fingernail scratches on her not stove lifter scratches.

As we can see, the pieces of evidence needed to prove Edward guilty of murder are missing. However, in today’s world Edward might be guilty of neglect because he was unaware of his child’s life despite living in the same house with her. Edward was Clara’s father and was responsible for her life. He was the one who should have taken care of his daughter thus preventing Clara’s death. But this, by no means, constitutes Edward’s being guilty of murder.

When this crime happened back in nineteenth century, the jury was still not likely to find Edward guilty of murder for the following reasons. Back then, families were very private. What happened indoors stayed indoors. People liked and preferred for their family matters to remain private and not to have the interference of an outsider, even if it was a severe case of murder such as the Rehberg case. Also, the idea of oath and a religious promise was very important to the nineteenth century jury. When Clara swore under oath and said that her dad was innocent and that she was beaten by her step-mother, this would have been greatly considered by the jury. During the 19th century, according to the Christian belief, when a person swore on God knowing that she/he was going to die, she/he was probably telling the truth. Even if Clara was only eleven years old, according to Dr. Weed, she was a very “intelligent child, and made rational answers to the questions put to her”. This proved to some extent that Clara knew what an oath was and was telling the truth.

Nonetheless, Clara’s beating was a very cruel and an unjust action that should have and could have been prevented. Even if there weren’t enough evidence in both the 19th century and 20th century standards to prove Edward guilty of murder, someone was responsible for the murder and should have gotten punished to the fullest extent.

Comments

[Ching-Hiu Chan]

You did a very nice job on this blog. You guys clearly state out the specifics and also make all your points clear. Which makes you have a strong blog. However just a few minor errors. 1) is that in your intro you guys state that: " they probably have one thing on their minds: deciding your fate and determining how much longer you will be living. " I think you should rephrase that because what happens if the jury thinks your inncocent then they dont determine how much longer you will live. Maybe rephrasing it to the things that a jury think of if your guilty or not would be more understanding. 2) I think you have a lot of run-on sentences. They can be easily fixed, one easy way is to split the sentence into two sentences. Example : "In this case, Edward Rehberg was accused of severely beating and abusing her eleven year old daughter, Clara Rehberg, who died as a result of these beatings." You can change that to: In this case, Edward Rehberg was accused of severely beating and abusing his eleven year old daughter, Clara Rehberg. As a result to the beatings she later on died." 3) Another error is that you state MR. Edward rehberg as a she. Example :"abusing her eleven year old daughter," But they are just common mistakes that can be corrected by proofreading.