In fact, the Texas Justice System would use coerced confessions, beaten out from Minorities, despite no evidence linking them to the crime, which had condemned these people to death. For instance, In the case of Cleo Smith, the Bowie County sheriff arrested Mr. Cleo Smith, an innocent African American, was the victim of a crime that made him a lazy scapegoat for a crime that he did not commit. After the police had found him on the street, they picked up Mr. Cleo Smith and took him to the scene of the crime where he was shown a little girl in order to identify him as the one who raped her. According to the writers Marquart, Ekland-Olson and Sorensen, in Cleo Smith’s own testimony, “I was shown to a 13-year-old girl, they asked her if I was the one and she told them no. They…show more content… The following day, Mr. Cleo Smith came back to the Sheriff’s office, where the Sheriff arrested him. Than the sheriff, interrogated Mr. Cleo Smith where the sheriff asked him repeatedly the question, did he raped the girl. Each time, Mr. Cleo Smith told the sheriff, “no” until finally the Sheriff became angry. According to the writers, Marquart, Ekland-Olson and Sorensen, the sheriff did this “he got mad, told me that I was telling a damn lie, and he then hit me with his fist and kicked me… they wrote out a statement, which stated that I had raped the girl and I signed it.” The state of Texas had executed this man for the crime of rape, which he did not commit. This case is one of the many that shows African Americans were victims of a racist biased justice system, which had no rational reasoning behind their decisions towards certain groups of people. According to Lawrence S. Wrightsman, Mary L. Pitman in their book The Miranda Ruling: Its Past, Present, and Future stated that “not only did police use third degree extensively in the 20th century, but a confession even to them was also the strongest piece of evidence the prosecution could bring against a criminal defendant at a trial. (2008,
