Rebecca Russo 9a

To Kill A Mockingbird Final Project

Good morning Your Honour, and ladies and gentlemen of the jury. My name is Rebecca
Russo, defense counsel for Mr. Michael Williams, sitting before you today wrongfully
accused of attempted robbery and possession of stolen property.

It has been a long two weeks of trial, where you have heard testimony from my client,
and you heard and saw lengthy evidence presented by both the Crown, and co-
defendant counsel.

I will now make closing arguments for my client, Mr. Michael Williams, and present our
theory why he is innocent on both charges, and how he was simply a victim of “being in
the wrong place, at the wrong time”1.

“People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for.”

In simple terms, this quote means - people hear what they want and see what they
want. There is also a term in society that “you cannot judge a book by its cover” 2, but
unfortunately society does time and time again.

You, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, Your Honour, and I, are raised in different
environments and neighbourhoods, and this upbringing shapes our lives and our
perceptions about people. Unfortunately prejudices and stereotypes exist in today’s
society. All, sadly enough, unfair portrayals of our true realities. In regards to my client,
a black man, this theme of unfair stereotypes and misconceptions has prevailed through
his trial in the Crown’s evidence.

And, just because my client, is a black man, living in poverty in the Jane and Finch area,
working two jobs to support his loving family, doesn't mean he is an accomplice to
commit two serious crimes like armed robbery and auto theft. To be blunt ladies and
gentlemen, because my client is black doesn’t reverse the onus of proof that lies with
the Crown to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt.

I once read the book by Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird and one quote stuck with me
since my youth. It reads, “You never really understand a person until you consider things
from his point of view… Until you climb inside his skin and walk around in it.” 3

What I am telling you today ladies and gentlemen of the jury is to walk around in the
defendant’s skin, an innocent man, wrongly accused.

1 Yevgeny Zamyatin, We 1921.

2 Piqua Democrat Newspaper, June 1867.
3 To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee.
Rebecca Russo 9a

I ask you, as jurors, to set aside your pre-conceptions and prejudices to do what is right.
You have the ability to separate right from wrong, fact from fiction, justice from
injustice, real evidence from circumstantial evidence in the case of Mr. Williams. You
owe that to the defendant, and owe that to society as part of your civic duty as jurors.

You would be doing a disservice to both yourselves and the justice system to let your
preconceived perceptions cloud your vision in this criminal case. And, the ultimate
disservice would be to my client, who is relying on you to objectively weigh the
evidence, separating what you think you heard and saw, from what is the truth.

It is our respectful submission, that the evidence presented to you in this case, did not
prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Michael Williams is guilty. In fact, the
evidence proves the contrary, my client’s innocence.

Mr. Michael Williams was an innocent bystander, and only a pawn surreptitiously used
by the co-defendant. The Crown wants you to believe he is guilty by association; well,
that is the furthest from the truth. We are not asking you jurors to feel sorry for Mr.
Williams, we are just asking you to put yourselves in my client’s position – remembering
he and his loving family are entrusting you with his life.

So just because my client, the defendant, is a black man living at Jane and Finch, in what
the prosecution described as a “not so nice area of town”, working as a part time
mechanic does not mean he hot-wired a car and co-conspired to rob a bank and use the
stolen car as a getaway vehicle.

In fact, let’s look at the facts. The evidence shows, as corroborated by Mr. Williams’
boss, Mr. Darius Jones, owner of Jones Automotive, that my client simply did his job; he
fixed the brakes on the car brought to him by the co-defendant, Mr. Bo Johnson. He was
just doing what he was paid to do…fix cars.

Mr. Michael Williams was also just simply doing his job when he took Mr. Bo Johnson
out for a test drive at approximately 4:50 p.m. after the brake repairs to demonstrate
the solid brake work he had done, when, unbeknownst to him, Mr. Bo Johnson asked
him to stop at the bank for a minute as he had to do what he explained as an “urgent”
transaction before it closed at 5 p.m. sharp.

Little did my client know, that Mr. Bo Johnson had duped my client into driving him to
the bank with the sole intention to rob the bank. Mr. Williams thought they were just
taking a test drive, nothing more. There was no pre-meditation proven on my client’s
part; he was blind to the fact that Mr. Bo Johnson was up to no good.

Furthermore, Mr. Williams had no knowledge that Mr. Bo Johnson was carrying a
loaded weapon or of his lengthy criminal record.
Rebecca Russo 9a

On its face, perhaps you could think my client was aiding and abetting the commission
of this most heinous crime – armed robbery. But, my client testified before you, under
oath, that he would have never entered the car with Mr. Johnson if he knew this was his
criminal plan, nor did Mr. Williams (or his boss) know that the car that Mr. Johnson
brought him to fix was stolen either. Mr. Darius Jones has run a reputable garage for
over a decade, and he wouldn’t ever allow his worker to work on a stolen vehicle.

Mr. Michael Williams is both a loving husband and father to two young children. He
worked part time at Jones’ garage, in addition to his night shift job at the Ford factory,
to make ends meet. He did this all legally to support his family, to give his children a
better future.

You heard how my client had no previous criminal record, and barely knew Mr. Bo
Johnson. He was a law-abiding citizen. A straight “A” student in auto shop class.

Just because two black men, who barely knew each other, from the same low-income
neighbourhood, driving in the same car attended a bank didn’t mean, that they both
had intentions of robbing it. Again, these are cruel and unjust stereotypes we need to
dispel to see the real truth in this case.

You saw from the evidence – the surveillance video from the bank – that Mr. Bo
Johnson entered alone and acted alone when he pointed a gun at the bank’s teller
demanding the money. While my client, sat innocently in the car, fiddling with the car
radio, patiently waiting for Mr. Bo Johnson to return; all the time thinking he was just
doing a client a favour by stopping at the bank 5 minutes before closing. He couldn’t see
what was really going on inside.

My client was shocked and startled when the police later came to the garage to
question him and his boss about his participation in the armed robbery. At no time did
Mr. Williams know what had transpired inside of the bank; again just in the wrong place
at the wrong time.

Further, at no time did the prosecution place my client at the scene of the crime when
the car was stolen a day before by Mr. Johnson. In fact the record clearly shows my
client was busy at work at the Ford plant when the theft occurred.

Your perception might have been at the outset of this trial that the two black men from
the Jane and Finch corridor were in cahoots all along, they had to be, because they are
both poor, and likely desperate, but the evidence proved beyond the shadow of a doubt
that Mr. Bo Johnson acted alone and only used Mr. Michael Williams, an innocent
victim, to help him perpetrate this crime without my client’s knowledge.
Rebecca Russo 9a

The criminal system requires both a criminal act (actus reus)4, and the intent to commit
a crime (mens rea)5 for a jury to render a guilty decision.

Firstly, my client could not be guilty of such alleged criminal activity if he did not even
know it was to occur in respect of the bank robbery, or had already occurred, in the case
of the stolen vehicle. The evidence presented by the Crown is only circumstantial, at
best.

Secondly, the evidence shows beyond the shadow of a doubt that Mr. Williams had
neither the intention nor knowledge of wrongdoing -- that which is necessary to
constitute part of a crime.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you must separate the two defendants, first, the one
who is truly guilty, Mr. Bo Johnson, the perpetrator, the cunning criminal mastermind,
and, second, the one who is truly an innocent victim, wrongly accused, standing before
you, my client.

This is truly a case of being at the wrong place at the wrong time. You cannot convict an
innocent man; look at my client as a human being, a loving father, the true victim in this
case, and not a perpetrator of two criminal acts. Let justice prevail and find my client
innocent on all counts.

The defence rests Your Honour. Thank you.

4 The wrongful act that makes up the physical action of a crime, Merriam Webster
Dictionary.
5 A culpable mental state involving intent or knowledge and forming an element of a

criminal offense, Merriam Webster Dictionary.

Rebecca Russo 9a

References

Actus reus. (2016). In Merriam- Webster’s online dictionary (11th ed.). Retrieved from
http://www.merriam-webster.com/legal/actus%20reus

AZ Quotes. (n.d.). Yevgeny Zamyatin Quotes. Retrieved November 28, 2016, from
http://www.azquotes.com/quote/1082740

Lee H. (2006). To Kill A Mockinbird. Toronto: HarperCollins Publishers.

Mens rea. (2016). In Merriam- Webster’s online dictionary (11th ed.). Retrieved from
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mens%20rea#legalDictionary

Nathonson, A., Kalil, S. (2010). “Argue not just for the day”. CLE BC. Retrieved November
24, 2016, from http://www.fasken.com/argue_not_just_for_day/

wikiHow. (2016.) How to write a closing argument. Retrieved November 22, 2016, from
http://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Closing-Argument

Wikipedia. (2016). Yevgeny Zamyatin. Retrieved November 28, 2016, from

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Zamyatin

You Can’t Judge a Book By Its Cover. (n.d.) Retrieved November 28, 2016, from
http://www.knowyourphrase.com/phrase-meanings/You-Cant-Judge-a-Book-By-Its-
Cover.html