With the use of evidence, eyewitness point of view, and expert opinion, the prosecution would like to convince the jury that the Bryant family should have to pay compensation to the Till family for the loss of Emmett Till on August 24th, 1955.

Here is some background information on the case to educate the jury in their decision. On August 24th, Emmett and 7 of his relatives pulled into the parking lot of Bryant’s Grocery and Meat Market. One of Emmett’s relatives didn’t believe that Emmett had a white girl friend back home in Chicago, so he dared Emmett to ask the white girl working at the store counter on a date. Emmett did that but maybe got a little too carried away when he grabbed her wrist and didn’t let go immediately. Emmett then fled the store with his relatives after he saw Carolyn Bryant, the woman working at the counter, pull a 38 caliber pistol from under the seat of her car, but thankfully, no shots were fired. When Roy Bryant came home from a business trip, he got word of what happened at the store between his wife and Emmett. At about 2 AM on August 28th, Roy Bryant and his friend, JW Milam, drove to Mose Wright’s house, where Emmett was staying. The 2 men walked into the house and requested to see “the boy from Chicago”. They told Emmett to put clothes on and then told him they were taking him for a ride and to lie down in the back of their pickup. At first, their intention was to just beat Emmet with the end of their guns, so they took him into Milam’s toolhouse and proceeded to pistol-whip him for several hours. They then forced Emmett to load a 74 pound cotton gin into the back of the pickup. The men drove Emmett to the Tallahatchie River and then told him to take his clothes off. After Emmett's clothes were off, Milam then shot him in the right side of the head with a .45 caliber pistol. Finally, Bryant and Milam tied one end of a barbed wire strand to the cotton gin and the other end they then roped around Emmett’s neck. They sent both of the objects off the cliff and into the Tallahatchie River below. On September 3rd, 1955 Roy Bryant and JW Milam were both acquitted of the kidnapping and murder charges they faced. The jury, was 12 white men who took just 68 minutes to reach a verdict.

The prosecution likes to think that the defense should have to pay compensation for the loss of Emmett Till because of two main reasons.

The first reason is that Roy Bryant and JW Milam should consider themselves lucky to only have to pay compensation to the family of the deceased. Due to confession, it is undisputed that Mr. Bryant and Mr. Milam kidnapped and killed young Emmett Till on August 24th, 1955. Mr. Bryant and Mr. Milam should consider themselves lucky because in 1955, kidnapping was a federal offense. It is no longer a federal offense today, but in 1955, when they were tried, they could have been easily executed simply with the charge of kidnapping. Murder was and still is obviously a federal offense, punishable by death. If Mr. Bryant and Mr. Milam were tried by an unbiased jury in a fair court, one has no reason not to believe that both of these men would surely have been faced with the death penalty. Money, Mississippi, where Roy Bryant and JW Milam were tried consisted of approximately 200 people in 1955. It had a single church, a single gas station, and 3 small stores. It was a town built upon cotton production in the 1800s, and that also unfortunately means that slavery played a key part in the culture of the town. That lifestyle full of slavery is most certainly what generated the racism and hatred for black people during the 1950s in Money, Mississippi. It is also what led to a biased jury and an unfair murder trial of Roy Bryant and JW Milam.

The second main reason is that Mamie Till and Mose Wright could have received proper psychological care with the compensation money from the Bryant family. Therapy isn’t always necessary after a child dies. However, when a young child is brutally murdered and the killers walk free it can be too much for some people to handle and they might need a professional to go through it with them. When a child of yours dies, it it important to find a professional and educated therapist that is specialized in treating people living with death. However, professional therapy comes at a high price. A single one hour session is estimated to cost anywhere between 150-200 dollars. As you can see, multiple sessions add up quickly and it doesn’t make any sense to have to pay for something you wouldn’t even need if someone didn’t kill your child. That is why it makes perfect logical sense that the Bryant family should have to pay compensation to the Till family for the death of Emmett Till.