Preview

The Law and Jury System in Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
687 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Law and Jury System in Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express
The Law and Jury System in Murder on the Orient Express

The law and jury system probably is not something that you would consider important while reading Murder on the Orient Express. You probably wouldn't even think about it, unless you're thinking about the punishment that the murderer would endure. However at the end of the novel when you find out how much it impacted the novel you would be amazed. The book took place on the Orient Express, on the Istanbul-Calais coach where a man was killed in his sleep. The story also had to do with a case that took place in America, where a little girl Daisy Armstrong was taken from her home, held for ransom, but then killed after the ransom was paid. Throughout the book, Detective Poirot is trying to solve this mysterious case. The Jury system was found in the number of people who helped in the murder, the idea of how he was killed, and what Poirot and Monsieur Bouc decided to tell yugoslav police. The first thing I noticed that was important and having to do with the law and jury concept, was that there were 12 people. In the book all 13 of the passengers had something to do with the murder of Daisy Armstrong, her maid who committed suicide, Daisies’ mother who died giving birth to a premature baby, or her father who shot himself because he was so broken-hearted. In a jury there are 12 people that decide the fate of the convict, and on the Orient Express the passenger appointed themselves as a jury ; to decide the fate of despicable Samuel Ratchett aka Cassetti. So all of the passengers, with the exception of one, Countess Andrenyi who was innocent, helped with the murder of Ratchett, it “Made it more in order” as Colonel Arbuthnot put it. I think that all of the passengers agreed because they all believed that the Armstrong case deserved justice. In the story we find out that Casetti had done this other times. We the readers learn this when Mrs. Hubbard said “There had been other children before Daisy-There

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    3. What is the significance of law and the jury in this novel? What is the difference between the two? Is this important? Why or…

    • 1266 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Murder on the Orient Express

    • 2273 Words
    • 10 Pages

    Murder on the Orient Express is more than just a murder mystery. It is a novel that utilizes a great deal of existing social issues of the era in which it was written and formed a commentary on those issues while giving the reader an intriguing yet approachable narrative. Through this approach, Agatha Christie has given the reader an opportunity to see the world through the eyes of the seasoned private investigator Hercule Poirot. In this world, nothing is at it seems and apparent coincidence belies a hidden truth, a world in which the geographical connections created by passenger railways allowed people of different nationalities and classes to rub elbows. Stereotypes of class and nationalities are both dominant social themes that persist throughout the novel. Social themes of crime, as well as good versus evil of the era also play an important role in the narrative.…

    • 2273 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Twelve Angry Men is a book written by Reginald Rose and takes place late one hot summer afternoon in the jury-room of a New York Court of law. The story revolves around a Jury that is trying to judge a murder trial. The 12 jurors must decide whether the defendant is guilty or not. The power of persuasion does not only influence characters in the book, but also persuades us to rethink, ‘Should something be changed in the judicial system?’…

    • 583 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Stamp Act Apush

    • 1198 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Admiralty Courts Stamp Act and Sugar Act offenses were tried in this court. Juries were not allowed and the burden of proof was on the defendant. All were assumed to be guilty until proven innocent. Trial by jury and innocent until proven guilty were basic rights that the British people everywhere had held dear.…

    • 1198 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    People whom observe the judicial system from afar can come to the conclusion that justice may be “blind”. However, this is not always true. In Rose’s piece of writing, it becomes the duty of twelve jurors to “try and separate the facts from the fancy” (Rose, 5). This means that the jurors would have to decide whether or not a 16-year-old boy was guilty of allegedly stabbing his father to death and committing “murder in the first degree- premeditated homicide” (Rose, 5).…

    • 813 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Latimer Mock Trial

    • 378 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The rules of criminal procedure are highly significant to the defendants because they are designed to guarantee the constitutional rights and freedoms to those individuals charged with an offence. They serve to truly protect the victims, and ensure the guilty are brought to justice. In criminal trials, individuals in the jury wielded real power in the trial since they settle the fate of their fellow citizens by determining the defense is whether they are guilty of some of the most horrendous crimes. Being a member of the jury, my predominant responsibility in the mock trial was listening to the evidence presented by the Crown and the defense carefully. The jury was expected to examine all the evidence deliberately and make judgement without any bias. In order to make the discussion about the trial confidential, the jury were adjourned to the outside of the room to make a decision. An unanimous was made by the jury in order for a verdict to be reached. In this mock trial, the jury decided that Latimer shall be given a sentence of seven years. This decision made by the jury reflects the values and standards of the general public that Latimer do not deserve a more severe sentence. By bringing ordinary citizens into the court and placing them at the very heart of the decision-making process, trial by jury has become the most democratic part of the legal system. Furthermore, I experienced that the court uses witness testimony in an attempt to convince the jury beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant committed the offense. During cross-examination, the Crown and the defense asked questions trying to detect falsehood of the testimony or to destroy the credibility of the opponent’s witnesses. By asking questions connected to the witnesses’ characters, the defense…

    • 378 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In the novel and then there were none by Agatha Christie I don’t think she favors one social class or another. but think that she is trying to tell people that they should try their best at life and what you do as a person can and will come back to haunt you in your future. But at the same time in the book the first character to die is rich and dies a UN harmful death by being poisoned. The lifestyle promoted in this book is the upper-class.…

    • 679 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    As Americans, we are given the right to a jury trial, one of the most important freedoms that out judicial system has to offer us. A jury consists of anywhere between 6 and 12 registered voters who determine whether a person is guilty or innocent in the act of crime that they are being accused of. Not only do they possess this power in a trial, but they may also judge the laws themselves and whether or not is perhaps unconstitutional, unfair, or cumbersome, in which case they can declare the defendant, the person accused of the crime, not-guilty. Their responsibility is heavy and their power enormous in the outcome of a trial. It is a way of distributing the power so that not just one person has total power, and also allowing society to be involved with their government because the jury acts as the conscience of our society.…

    • 480 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    12 Angry Men Essay

    • 678 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The vote started off at 11 “guilty” to 1 “not guilty”. Those men that voted guilty were in an uproar that one man had voted not guilty and could not understand why. However that one man was able to provide enough evidence as to ways the young boy could be innocent and he changed a few other jurors’ minds as well. There were many great points made in the juror room as to how the young boy could be innocent. For instance someone else in the apartment building said that they heard the boy scream he was going to kill his father then heard a thud on the floor. However a woman from an apartment from across the tracks said she watched him kill his father just as the train was passing. If the train was passing it would have been very loud and the man from the same apartment building would not have been able to hear the young boy yell. This proves that the witnesses are not reliable. Another example is that they said the knife used to kill the father was a one of a kind knife that no one else owned when come to find out one of the jurors has the same exact knife, quite a coincidence. The arguing went on and eventually together the jurors were able to come up with enough contradictions to the story that the vote became once again 11 to 2 but this time it was 11 “not guilty” and 1 “guilty”. Eventually they were able to conclude the meeting and rule the boy to be not…

    • 678 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The right to a trial by jury can be traced to the Magna Carta in 1215. This right was incorporated into…

    • 938 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Jurors perform a key part in the American arrangement of equity. The assurance of our rights and freedoms is to a great extent accomplished through the collaboration of judge and jury who, cooperating in a typical exertion, put into practice the standards of our extraordinary legacy of flexibility. The judge decides the law to be connected in the case while the jury chooses the truths. Therefore, in an imperative manner, members of the jury turn into a piece of the court itself. The American criminal justice system is the arrangement of practices and organizations of governments steered at maintaining social control, dissuading and moderating wrongdoing, or authorizing the individuals who disregard laws with criminal punishments and restoration exertions.…

    • 552 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    This essay will identify issues outside of the primary theme of race that come to light during the court case in…

    • 1524 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The reason that the other members of the jury at first automatically voted “Guilty” was because they let an array of different elements interfere with their moral deliberations. Sometimes people get distracted, like Juror 7 trying to rush through the voting to get to a baseball game he had tickets for. Others can have prejudices against certain people, like Juror 10 who believes that people born in the slum are innately evil from birth and of course they would kill their own father, they are born liars, no question about it. These characters were not upholding their moral integrity in there deliberations.…

    • 423 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Jury trials are used in a significant share of serious criminal cases in almost all common law legal systems,[1] and juries or lay judges have been incorporated into the legal systems of many civil law countries for criminal cases. Only the United States and Canada make routine use of jury trials in a wide variety of non-criminal cases. Other common law legal jurisdictions use jury trials only in a very select class of cases. a jury is a collection of twelve randomly selected persons between the ages of 18 and 65 from the electoral roll. They are all registered voters and are resident citizens of the country . In most common law jurisdictions, the jury is responsible for finding the facts of the case, while the judge determines the law. These "peers of the accused" are responsible for listening to a dispute, evaluating the evidence presented, deciding on the facts, and making a decision in accordance with the rules of law and their jury instructions. Typically, the jury only judges guilt or a verdict of not guilty, but the actual penalty is set by the judge. An interesting innovation was introduced in Russia in the judicial reform of Alexander II: unlike in modern jury trials, jurors decided not only whether the defendant was guilty or not guilty, but they had the third choice: "Guilty, but not to be punished", since Alexander II believed that justice without morality is wrong.…

    • 632 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The film “12 Angry Men” is a 1957 drama consisting of a dozen men on jury, who attempt to reach a verdict involving a teenager in a murder case. A guilty verdict was initially predicted, but the jury members start questioning and reasoning the testimonies given in court. Was the boy being accused of stabbing his father really guilty? All the information regarding the timing of the train, the timing of the murder, and the testimonies did not add up. Through much debate, a complex voting process, and many concepts learned through SCOM, the jury managed to attain a not-guilty ruling due to the inadequate testimonies and facts gathered.…

    • 1027 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays