Rebecca Nurse vs. Our Justice System
A close examination of the accusations against Rebecca Nurse breaks many of the stereotypes that are associated with witches and provides a unique comparison to our current justice system.
Normally, when you watch a movie or even a kids show, witches are usually portrayed as snarly, old, and haggard. All you need to do is look towards classic examples like Snow White or Rapunzel. However, if you look to what happened in Salem and many other areas in Europe where witch trials occurred, older women were generally not the target. Most of those who were accused of witchcraft and eventually tried were younger women. Especially in Salem, the case of Rebecca Nurse definitely went against the grain in terms of target. It can almost be viewed as an anomaly in the same way that it was very rare for a man to be executed for witchcraft. The fact that it ended in an execution is very interesting as well because they gave her multiple opportunities to confess. It was almost as if the town did not necessarily want her accusations to end in an execution. This is exactly how our current justice system operates.
While only certain states still have the death penalty, it is very unusual for someone of her age to get a death penalty sentence even if they committed the worst crimes possible. There is a process of appeals and time needed to be spent in jail before it is their time to face the executioner. Generally, with an older person, it is not worth the hassle to go through all of these hoops when they can just live out the rest of their days in a prison anyway. I remember this summer as an intern at a court in Tarrant County seeing a delayed sentence given to an old man who shot his daughters fiancé in the head. This delayed sentence means he was free to live his life on basically a parole where if he behaved then he would not face any jail time. All of this was because of his age. It raises questions of what the rush was in Salem with these individuals specifically. My first guess is that simply hysteria forced them to all act irrationally. Rebecca Nurse sat in jail for a little bit, but there was never really a time to truly evaluate her case to a full extent. It is hard for me to wrap my head around the necessity of execution for such an old but also prominent member of the community.
Thanks for this comparison of then and now. the judicial system of the late 17th century is certainly far different from what we have today. There was no appeal system, and once condemned the executions had to be carried out. Condemnation meant death, and there were no last second reprieves. You raise two interesting questions--why didn't Rebecca Nurse confess to save herself, and how age factors into death penalty sentences. I have no idea about age and death penalty sentences today, but more often than not it was not a factor in the 17th and 18th centuries. I have read accounts of condemned men in the 80s being helped up the gallows. But I appreciate your anecdote about the delayed sentence given to an old man for shooting his daughter's fiancé.
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