Skip to main content

Why does Briggs object to the way Detective Karyl gets witnesses to give information in Monster by Walter Dean Myers?

When Detective Karyl is on the witness stand, Petrocelli asks him if he looked for any clues at the crime scene that would potentially lead to the perpetrator. Karyl says that they looked for clues but didn't find any, then they began questioning suspects. Karyl admits that they questioned a number of people that may have had possible information about the crime and came across Mr. Zinzi, who told them about Mr. Bolden. Mr. Bolden then told them about Bobo Evans and James King. Detective Karyl says,



"We often use information from informants, especially in murder cases" (Myers 74).



When Asa Briggs, King's lawyer, cross-examines Detective Karyl, he asks Karyl if they typically skip the investigation and run to their "stoolies" for information. Karyl maintains that they treat each case carefully, even though they were unable to find any fingerprints at the scene. Briggs finds it suspicious that Detective Karyl appears to hurry through the crime-scene investigation in order to seek informants who are willing to tell on other people so that they can receive a reduced sentence. He asks Karyl,



"And it really isn’t that hard to find people who are in jail or whom you arrest to swear that somebody else is a bad guy? Isn’t that right?" (Myers 79).



Briggs believes that Detective Karyl simply offered inmates reduced sentences who were willing to "point the finger" at other people, regardless if the person was involved in the crime or not. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...

Is 'efficate' a word in English?

I routinely hear the word "efficate" being used. For example, "The most powerful way to efficate a change in the system is to participate." I do not find entries for this word in common English dictionaries, but I do not have an unabridged dictionary. I have checked the OED (I'm not sure if it is considered unabridged), and it has no entry for "efficate". It does have an entry for "efficiate", which is used in the same way. Wordnik has an entry for "efficate" with over 1800 hits, thus providing some evidence for the frequency of use. I personally like the word and find the meaning very clear and obvious when others use it. If it's not currently an "officially documented" word, perhaps its continued use will result in it being better documented.