The fallibility of man and of his decisions is an inevitability for which society has had to make allowances. Due to this mundane imperfection, humanity, by necessity, has acquired tolerance for the accidental and imprudent. Thankfully, these indiscretions and lapses of good judgment are typically minor, without long-term or significant consequences. However, when ordinary men and women, subject to bias, prejudice, and all other human failings, are charged with the extraordinary responsibility of issuing an acquittal or condemnation, the slightest error can carry the greatest of consequences. To ensure the justness of trial, verdict, and sentence, the American justice system is forced to rely upon the judgment of the common man. Unfortunately, this same trial system of justice can turn arbitrary and can be manipulated to allow guilty citizens the sweet air of freedom while delivering the innocent into the cold hands of death and confinement. Nowhere is of the American justice system's struggle to cast aside the prejudice and bias that is inherent in human character while maintaining the sanctity of the constitutional trial-by-peer procedure more prominent than in literature and film. The fact that petty matters as an unfavorable race or creed or economic disadvantage can prove to be a fatal distinction in matters of justice, is a reoccurring artistic theme.
             Before a suspect is even brought into the courtroom, he must undergo the perils of apprehension by the Executive branch's law enforcement. The power of the Executive branch rests solely on physical force and the threat of harm. Due to this, police officers often substitute intuition for logic and forcefulness for a calm reason. Results of this of this include racial profiling and unnecessary brutality against minorities. In Ernest Gaines' "Lesson Upon Dying," the black Jefferson is an innocent bystander in the murder of a white liquor storeowner. The possibility of Jackson being ...