A Time to Kill Post -- Kathryn Campbell

Carl Lee’s killing of the men who raped his daughter is neither justice or injustice, in my opinion. Obviously killing people is not just. I, personally, do not believe in the death penalty because I think that death is almost a way out of the crime someone committed. In turn, I do not believe that it is okay to do what Carl Lee did, but his case is a lot different. In the situation of Carl Lee Haley, he knew that the murder trial would not end in the two men being punished. The verdict would have, therefore, been completely unjust due to the racist court system and jury. This provides some justification for his actions. What he did, in addition to a biased legal system, makes this a grey area, and therefore I do not believe it was either justice or injustice.

After the rape and beating of his ten year old daughter, Carl Lee Haley wanted justice in some way for the actions of the men who beat and raped her. He knew that justice would not come through a trial because the criminal justice system was racist. He knew that because he was black, and the men who raped his daughter were white, the men would get away with the crime. There had been a similar case in the past where a white man raped a black girl and was found innocent. Carl Lee thought that the only way to receive justice was to take matter into his own hands, and to kill the two men.

I think it’s hard to determine his punishment because although he did kill the two men, it was the racist court system that brought him to do so. I think that putting him in jail or anything more extreme would not have solved any of the problems, so I think it is right for him to have been found innocent.

There was not equal justice for black and white people in mississippi at this time. Of course, there isn’t an unbiased justice system today either, but at the time it was a lot worse. Black people were more likely to be convicted of a crime and more likely to be given larger punishments than white people. At the same time, white people were much more likely to get away with crimes they committed. This shows the unequal justice system, as there was less justice for black people than white people If Tanya haley were white, the court probably would have found the men who raped her guilty in the first place, thus eliminating the need for Carl Lee to take justice into his own hands. The men would not have been killed if Tanya was white. Race matters because it creates a bias, and whether she’s white or black determines whether the bias is in favor of, or against her.