Not Guilty Research Paper

Guilty or Not Guilty?
Many people suffer all their lives from this oppressive feeling of guilt. I was one of them. On April 25th, 2000, I pled not guilty to murdering my fiancé, James Watkins. I knew I was guilty and I was going to plead guilty, but my lawyer told me to plead not guilty. I didn’t want to go to jail, but I did the crime so I needed to do the time. Throughout this paper I will inform you about my story and its outcome.
James and I were High School sweethearts. We had been together for 7 years; our relationship was perfect. He was the sweetest guy I had ever known. He was not only my significant other but also my best friend. He always told me I would never have to work as long as I was with him. He always took me out on dates and bought me nice things. James was generally a kindhearted person. During March of 2000, I started noticing drastic changes. We no longer went on dates, and the nice gifts started coming to an end. It seemed like he was seeing someone else, but I didn’t want to make any assumptions.
On April 15, 2000, he called the engagement off. He never explained to me why he was calling everything off. He simply said, “It wasn’t working out anymore.” I kept asking him was it something I did
hoping I could fix it. I found out through a couple of mutual friends that during March while he was making all these drastic changes he was seeing my ex best friend, Leah Taylor. While our dates stopped their dates began. They met at a bar one night when I let James go out with a couple of our mutual friends without me. From then on they continued seeing each other. Things obviously became serious because on April 22, 2000, I was informed that they were engaged. I was enraged at both of them, especially James. He knew the situation that happened between me and her in High School. The guy I was dating before James Leah stole him from me. I never talked to her since. I couldn’t believe my best friend would do such a thing to me. They both proved what type of people they are after this situation.
After hearing about their engagement on April 22nd all I could think about was how perfect our relationship was. The thoughts that were going through my mind were if I couldn’t have him no one could. The only thing that kept popping in my head was “Kill him, kill him!” I didn’t know exactly how I would kill him, but I knew it was going to happen as soon as possible. I couldn’t believe that instead of killing Leah, I was going to kill James. On April 23, 2000, I then decided I was going to kill him. I hadn’t processed how I was going to do it though. I thought about how I would do it over night. The next day, I decided I was going to shoot him 3 times in the heart. I decided I was going to shoot him in the heart because I wanted his heart to hurt just like mine.
On April 25, 2000, I pulled up down the street from my ex fiancé’s house and waited on Leah to leave. When she left I got out the car and slowly walked up to the house. I decided to take the back door so no one could see me breaking into the house. I knew this house like the back of my hand because, of course, I used to live here at one time too. The house was still decorated just like I left it. The only things that were missing were pictures of us throughout high school until now. They were replaced with engagement pictures and a picture of her stomach. I then realized that she was pregnant. This made me even angrier. Every time I asked about kids he always told me that he wanted to wait until we actually got married. What made her so different? They were only engaged like we were. Taking in all this new information I heard the front door open. It was him, James Watkins. He didn’t see me, but I didn’t care. I fired the gun at his back. He then fell to the ground. I pushed him over and fired 7 shots at his heart. I fired 7 shots for all the 7 years I wasted with him. I rushed out of the house. I passed several mirrors on the way out of the house. The last one I stopped and glared at myself. I was no longer Jaime Lynn. I was a murderer.
Here I am now in court confessing to murdering my ex fiancé.
My lawyer had already told everyone that I was pleading not guilty, but I said otherwise. I plead guilty for obvious reasons. I was guilty. The whole time my lawyer was telling me to plead not guilty I was thinking about what would Jesus do? I was raised in a very religious home and lying wasn’t something I was taught. I decided to plead guilty because I always took full responsibility of anything I did. I know lying is part of the lawyer’s job, but I just couldn’t do it. I made this promise to James that when it was something about him that I would always tell the truth. No matter what the punishment was. This was definitely a time to tell the
truth.
Even though I confessed to murdering James Watkins, I only received 7 years in prison. This angered several people in my town. It puzzled me as to why I got such a lenient punishment after the horrible thing I did to innocent James and his family. During those 7 years in jail I learned and experienced a lot. After spending two months in jail I found out that Leah lost her baby due to all the stress. My heart went out to her. As for my family they still don’t talk to me today. Because they are so religious they can’t seem to forgive me for such a thing. I hope that maybe one day they will. I’m guessing you want to hear about my life after jail. Well, I attended Fisk University, despite my criminal background and received a degree in Pre-Med/Psychology. I am now enrolled in medical school hoping to become a Psychologist. I hope that someone in shoes similar to mine can read this story and realize all things are possible.