Mary Surratt Research Paper

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Pages: 3

Over the past century, the public’s view of Mary Surratt has wavered and is still being questioned today by many. Some believe that she was guilty and rightfully executed, while many believe that there was no way a woman could have done the things she was convicted of. In fact, there was a re-trial of Mary Surratt done in front of an audience by a group of Chicago lawyers and judges. These lawyers and judges put on this mock trial to see if she was rightfully convicted or if she should have been found innocent. After all the evidence was presented to the judges, they had the audience vote on Surratt’s case. The audience voted that after hearing all evidence for and against Surratt that she was in fact innocent of the charges brought against …show more content…
Does the fact that a woman is being hung for a crime surprise anyone nowadays? The answer should be no because in today’s age, there are many examples of women committing crimes, some of which are particularly horrifying for a woman to commit. When these crimes are told to the public, we do not care as much if it is a man or woman, we care that justice is done because we know that a woman could, like anyone else, commit crimes that demand harsh consequences. An additional piece people look at today to analyze Mary Surratt is the Robert Redford film, The Conspirator. This film seems to waver on the side of Mary’s innocence because it goes into great detail on her defense and it also talks a lot about Frederick Aiken. Aiken was one of the very few that truly believed that Mary was innocent throughout her trial and he did everything that he could to try and prove her innocence to the courts. This movie takes us inside the courtroom and tells us what the scene was like during the trial and how the public saw Mary and even Aiken and his attempts to prove Mary’s