Warning: Comprises spoilers for Season 4 of Stranger Issues.
There was no means out.
He would by no means have the ability to elude a bleak future.
Even when Eddie Munson had survived Vecna’s Demobats, he would nonetheless have misplaced.
After analyzing the case in opposition to the lovable character and the homicide costs in opposition to him, attorneys decided that Munson would have had a slim likelihood of escaping a court docket conviction.
However they did say he has an opportunity. And they’d defend the unsung hero to the perfect of their talents.
The Evolution of Eddie Munson
Stranger Issues’ Season 4 launched watchers to the harmless character of Munson, performed by the English actor Joseph Quinn.
Once we first met Eddie, it was lunchtime. Dustin Henderson (performed by Gaten Matarazzo) and Mike Wheeler (performed by Finn Wolfhard) sat on the identical desk, indicating they have been in the identical group of rejects.
Viewers solely noticed a derelict with lengthy, greasy hair, who spends most of his time promoting capsules somewhat than doing “regular” highschool actions (like basketball or partying). They see the loser who ought to have graduated from highschool at the least a yr in the past, however he’s such a failure he would somewhat repeat his senior yr, hearken to inappropriate, metallic music, and promote capsules.
Folks see Eddie as a disappointment. He’s somebody who doesn’t care about his future.
Due to this fact, when police discover Chrissy’s lifeless physique in Munson’s trailer with Eddie nowhere to defend himself, the straightforward conclusion is that Munson killed the cheerleader. Because the our bodies proceed to pile up, the witch hunt for Munson turns into extra frantic.
Nonetheless, because the present progresses, we’re aware of what the Hawkins police and residents can’t see. Viewers be taught Munson has a coronary heart of gold. When Dustin, Mike, and even Luke Sinclair (performed by Caleb McLaughlin) felt like outcasts, he welcomed them into the Hellfire Membership and watched out for them. He felt responsible for leaving Chrissy’s lifeless physique within the trailer, even when he didn’t kill her.
Ultimately, Munson gave his life to save lots of the city – though everybody within the metropolis, apart from the gang, wished his head on a silver platter. He didn’t need harmless folks to die.
It’s additionally important to notice Munson will not be the one one on trial. His standing in society is dealing with judgment too.
From when he was born, someday between 1965 and 1966, Munson by no means had a great shot at changing into profitable in different folks’s eyes. His paternal uncle, Mr. Wayne Munson, turned his custodial mother or father when Eddie was younger. The 2 lived in Hawkins’ Forest Hills Trailer Park, throughout the road from Max. Mr. Wayne Munson didn’t make a lot however tried his greatest to take care of Eddie.
It’s troublesome for somebody in Eddie’s place to grow to be profitable. He’s an outcast, disenfranchised from society. Most individuals will take a look at Eddie and choose him as an alternative of seeing him as an individual with a narrative. Due to this fact, many like Eddie do what they’ll to outlive – even when it means promoting medicine to assist cowl bills or to dwell.
Duffer Brothers Communicate — What If… Munson Lived
Now, think about if Eddie, had, by some miracle, survived the Demobats’ wrath. His outlook would have been simply as tragic.
Matt and Ross Duffer, generally known as the “Duffer brothers,” are the writers, administrators, and government producers of the Netflix sequence. They deliberate from the start that Eddie could be the flawed hero – the courageous soul condemned to a heartbreaking future.
“In a means, we noticed Eddie as a little bit of a doomed character,” Matt Duffer had informed the viewers of the Blissful Unhappy Confused podcast, hosted by Josh Horowitz. In his weekly episodes, Horowitz interviews Hollywood’s prime celebrities.
“Even imagining the flip facet of that the place he does survive the battle will not be a fantastic life awaiting Eddie again in the appropriate facet up both. He was at all times actually designed from the get-go as a doomed character?”
Ross Duffer provides, “On the very finish, you see folks nonetheless drawing satan horns on his head – nobody in Hawkins goes to simply accept a supernatural clarification for this. He would have wound up in jail and this fantasy that he would have been capable of stroll and graduate, sadly was not ever a practical end result for him.”
Obstacles Attorneys Should Overcome
Nonetheless, Munson turned such a beloved character with followers, many wished him to outlive.
“He’s a powerful particular person. I might stand hip and shoulder and jowl subsequent to Eddie Munson and struggle for him,” mentioned Jack Rice, a Minnesota-based lawyer. His background consists of being a former prosecutor and a former U.S. Central Intelligence Company Officer. He has labored worldwide, in international locations resembling Iraq, Afghanistan, and Central Russia.
Rice and different attorneys talk about some courtroom methods that can be utilized. The methods depend upon varied elements, together with the witnesses, the proof offered (from each the prosecution and the protection), and Eddie’s costs.
Notion Is All the things
Devil’s Work
Rice, holder of the Skilled Excellence Award from the Minnesota State Bar Affiliation in 2020, mentioned one of many fundamental obstacles for Eddie is how the city views him.
Viewers can observe this destructive outlook from the present’s fourth season’s scene when Eddie reads from the native newspaper. The article described the so-called devilish horror of Dungeons & Dragons. Many thought the sport advocated satan worship.
The present is ready within the Nineteen Eighties, corresponding with the rise within the recreation’s recognition. On the time, many People attributed the sport’s recognition to the rising violence within the nation.
“Satanic worshipping – it was actually intense within the 80s and 90s,” Rice mentioned.
The sport’s destructive publicity began in 1982 when Patricia Pulling, a Virginia mom, tried to sue her son’s highschool principal for encouraging him to play Dungeon & Dragons, which she believed induced her son to commit suicide. In 1980, her son died from a self-inflicted gunshot damage. She thought gamers have been part of a cult.
In accordance to the BBC, she described Dungeon & Dragons as a “fantasy role-playing recreation which makes use of demonology, witchcraft, voodoo, homicide, rape, blasphemy, suicide, assassination, madness, intercourse perversion, homosexuality, prostitution, satanic, kind rituals, playing, barbarism, cannibalism, sadism, desecration, demon summoning, necromantics, divination and different teachings.”
Eddie is standing on the lunch desk, laughing, making enjoyable of the article in entrance of the opposite members of his Dungeon & Dragons membership — The Hellfire Membership. Eddie is the chief; the “Dungeon Grasp.” Taking part in the sport, whereas an harmless passion, works in opposition to Eddie within the 1986 courtroom.
Caught up within the so-called satanic panic, Hawkins residents refused to consider that any respectable particular person would play the sport, not to mention on a regular basis.
The Budding Profession of a Drug Seller
If Munson’s alleged satanic worship will not be sufficient, there’s additionally his drug dealing. Folks knew Eddie was the varsity drug vendor. If somebody wanted a capsule, they went to Eddie.
Chrissy Cunningham, the gorgeous cheerleader, relationship the basketball star, was hallucinating. Vecna had gotten maintain of her, however nobody knew. She wanted somebody or one thing to remove her visions.
Her resolution? Medicine. So, like some other Hawkins Excessive College scholar, she went to Eddie. She met up with him, and he took her to his place to get the medicine.
He by no means thought he would witness Vecna homicide her.
First Vecna put her in a trance. “Chrissy get up,” he mentioned, terrified. “I don’t like this. Chrissy get up. Hey, hi there. Are you able to hear me?”
No response. Out of the blue, Vecna managed Chrissy like a puppet, elevating her limbs, twisting them, and cracking her bones. Then, Vecna dropped her. Eddie ran. When the Hawkins Metropolis Police arrived and located the physique, the officers blamed Eddie. Apart from, and maybe rightfully so, no Hawkins Police Officer would consider what he noticed.
Though circumstantial, the clues pointed to him. He’s into Dungeons & Dragons. He’s a drug vendor. He is a no account loser. Nobody likes him.
Out for Blood
After the entire different deaths, together with these of Freddy (the highschool scholar who works on the varsity newspaper with Natalie), and Patrick (Lucas’ basketball teammate), there was no reasoning with anybody. Like villagers chasing Frankenstein’s monster with pitchforks and torches, the townspeople of Hawkins wished Munson’s blood.
“You get this fascinating mixture of paranoia and kind of ‘group assume’ that drives regulation enforcement to behave inappropriately,” Rice mentioned.
“You get this group hysteria – the place we determined we all know what the reply is the place we actually don’t,” he mentioned. “That’s the reason Eddie Munson should die.”
So, the police instantly blamed Munson with out a correct investigation.
Taking The Case to Court docket
The viewers know who accountable. After all, it’s Vecna.
However the townspeople don’t know. And the attorneys can’t put Vecna on the stand. They don’t know the place he’s. Even when somebody tries telling the reality – saying a younger boy named Henry Creel grew as much as grow to be the monster that’s Vecna and is the chief of one other evil world referred to as the “Upside Down.” Nobody will consider them, Rice mentioned.
And, if the jurors see photos of Creel as a toddler, they’d be even much less prone to consider this younger, “harmless” boy was behind the entire deaths. Whereas the protection might attempt to get Creel’s medical information – it’s nearly not possible to put fingers on paperwork from the federal government’s Nationwide Safety department.
“They shield these issues just like the topped jewels,” Rice mentioned.
So, if the city refuses to consider the wild tales {that a} monster is behind the deaths, they’ll place blame on the following greatest suspect: Eddie Munson.
There’s a good likelihood court docket officers would transfer the trial to a different jurisdiction. The protection would definitely need that.
“Very first thing could be a change of venue,” Rice mentioned. “I might transfer for a change of venue. Then…we might transfer ahead primarily based upon that.”
A Los Angeles lawyer, Arash Hashemi, with the Regulation Places of work of Arash Hashemi, agreed. Transferring the trial to a bigger county, resembling Marion County, which homes Indianapolis, could make for a bigger jury pool.
However submitting an order for a change of venue isn’t a slam dunk.
“The issue could be, with such a high-profile, alleged crime spree …discovering a venue throughout the state that wouldn’t be tainted by the media circus,” defined Josh Lepchitz in an E-mail. Lepchitz is a Virginia-based lawyer.
“The usual will range from state to state, however typically, a defendant goes to have to indicate how it’s they can’t obtain a good trial within the correct venue,” he continued. “It took over 10 days to pick out a jury pool for Ahmad Arbery to provide you a contemporary instance of a high-profile case.”
The Record of Expenses
One of many protection lawyer’s early steps could be to have a look at the fees, which might be extreme on this case.
Rice mentioned early on, prosecutors would cost Munson with dealing medicine, which is taken into account a felony. Usually regulation enforcement and prosecutors will stack as many potential costs as attainable, in hopes of gaining some leverage in pre-trial negotiations.
In keeping with Rice and Lepchitz, Eddie would at the least face first-degree homicide on account of Chrissy’s loss of life.
“Mr. Munson would probably be dealing with a litany of costs,” Lepchitz mentioned in an E-mail. “Three counts of homicide would definitely be on the desk if regulation enforcement and prosecution make some sturdy leaps of their proof on a number of the deaths.”
Rice added Indiana regulation bases the first-degree cost primarily based on premeditation. The prosecution would argue Eddie purposely lured Chrissy to his trailer to kill her.
Officers can pile kidnapping onto the fees too.
Including to The Arraignment
In keeping with Lepchitz, “If regulation enforcement can produce possible trigger that Chrissy was held in opposition to her will on the trailer, (it’s) not a troublesome leap to make given the assumptions that may be made, he might additionally face a kidnapping cost, and if there’s any proof on her particular person of any sexual conduct/contact, a sexual assault or rape cost wouldn’t essentially be unforeseeable.”
Whereas the Duffer brothers by no means gave Eddie’s precise age, he’s considered round 19 or 20, as a result of he’s repeating his senior yr. At that age, prosecutors would attempt him as an grownup. Even when he was a minor, the prosecutors would possibly nonetheless cost him as an grownup because of the crimes’ severity.
Additionally, with Hawkins set in Indiana, Eddie can face the loss of life penalty. The loss of life penalty has been within the lawbooks even earlier than Indiana turned a state. In keeping with the Demise Penalty Data Heart, public hangings turned frequent within the 1800s as an early type of the loss of life penalty. The introduction of the electrical chair modified issues, changing into the first technique of execution in 1913. Since 1972, executions have grow to be rarer, however they nonetheless happen.
In keeping with Lepchitz, “Demise penalty instances require proof of prior intent or some type of premeditation. An outcast searching for revenge implies premeditation. It’s the house run swing, however it could definitely be on the desk.”
And the prosecutors could not cease at charging solely Eddie, Rice warned. They may cost the remainder of the gang too – Dustin, Mike, Lucas, Steve Harrington (Joe Keery), Natalie Wheeler (Natalie Dyer), Erica Sinclair (Priah Ferguson), and Robin Buckley (Maya Hawke) – all of those that have been in Hawkins throughout the crime spree. They could additionally embrace Max Mayfield (Sadie Sink) if she’s awoken from her coma. They’d view them as hindering the investigation and hiding Munson and will even cost them as coconspirators within the homicide.
Witnesses for The Protection
Hashemi mentioned Eleven/Jane could be a beneficial protection witness. “She is the focus of combating this evil that’s on the market. Who higher to speak in regards to the existence of it than Eleven? She has had private fights and experiences, and she or he has saved the world,” he mentioned.
Now – her testimony could also be a double-edged sword. The prosecution, throughout cross-examination, will most probably carry up her prior acts and historical past – resembling being a affected person of the Hawkins Nationwide Laboratory. They’d query why she was there. Their questions would point out she was there on account of psychological instability and attempt to poke holes in her repute.
They’ll additionally ask her about her earlier violence towards others. Most not too long ago, she hit her bully, Angela, with the underside of a curler skate whereas they have been on the skating rink. And the prosecution can blame her for the deaths of all the kids on the analysis lab. Whereas Vecna is the actual assassin, he’s not there. Due to this fact, the following neatest thing is accountable Eleven.
“She induced hurt to folks,” Hashimi mentioned. “She induced hurt to the blond lady within the skating rink. That’s one thing the protection must be ready for. Her historical past might be used.”
Rice mentioned his star witness could be Dustin Henderson. “Dustin is aware of Eddie Munson like no one else,” mentioned Rice. Dustin could be the perfect witness to testify to Munson’s character.
Even throughout the ultimate scenes of Season 4, Dustin described to Munson’s uncle the hero he noticed in his nephew. “Even in the long run, he by no means stopped being Eddie,” Dustin mentioned. “Regardless of every thing. I by no means even noticed him get mad. He might have run. He might have saved himself. However he fought. He fought, and he died to guard the city.
Some attorneys could select to place Uncle Munson on the stand, however his testimony wouldn’t be as highly effective as Dustin’s. He, like Eddie Munson, lived in a trailer, in near-poverty situations. The prosecutors would attempt to present Uncle Munson can’t be trusted on account of his disenfranchised poverty. Like Eddie, he doesn’t match the stereotype of a profitable American.
However, Dustin follows the foundations – he is an efficient scholar, a humorous and lovable character, and, extra importantly, comes from a well-to-do household. By no means thoughts that he obtained Suzie Bingham, his girlfriend, to vary his grade from a “C” to an “A.” The writers by no means make an enormous deal of Dustin’s dishonest. Nonetheless, if Eddie had finished that, police officers would have used that motion in opposition to him.
Witnesses for The Prosecution
The Prosecutors have many witnesses from which they might select.
They will name up the highschool basketball gamers whose crew captain and good friend they misplaced. Vecna’s grotesque vines take JasonCarver’s life, however the crew blames Eddie. Hashemi mentioned they’d be greater than prepared to place Eddie behind bars. They’d additionally need somebody to go down for Chrissy’s homicide since she was relationship Jason.
An vital witness could be “Reefer Rick” Lipton, who provided Eddie with the medicine he offered. When Eddie was hiding, he took shelter in Lipton’s boathouse and residence at 2121 Holland Street, close to Lover’s Lake. Whereas Lipton was in jail then, he might testify to Eddie shopping for unlawful substances from him and Eddie breaking into his house.
The Prosecutors will carry ahead Hawkins officers Calvin Powell and Phil Callahan; each had responded to Chrissy’s loss of life on the Munson trailer. Officer Powell is the one who formally names Eddie as Chrissy’s assassin, since he was the final one to see her alive.
The Proof for and Towards
protection crew may even consider the prosecution’s proof and which proof may help Eddie.
The corpses are vital items of proof for the prosecution. “Our bodies at all times function sturdy proof in a homicide trial, however they’ll endure the scrutiny of a forensic medical examination. One want to assume {that a} medical expert, holding a sound medical diploma for his or her subject, would have the ability to analyze the stays of Vecna’s victims and attain the conclusion that the acts that led to the deaths have been probably not human,” Lepchitz mentioned.
However, as Rice talked about, the residents need somebody accountable. They may ignore the scientific proof and concentrate on the circumstantial proof as an alternative.
A Preponderance of Proof
Hashemi gave an inventory of different proof the prosecutors will request to make use of. They will use any medicine they discover whereas looking out Eddie’s trailer. They will usher in all of Eddie’s Dungeons & Dragon gadgets. Even his guitar can be utilized in opposition to him. College information will present he’s a failure at college.
Eddie’s a metalhead, and a metalhead suits into the prosecuting crew’s description of a legal. “Music is without doubt one of the causes he’s evil,” Hashemi famous.
Police also can search the boathouse, the place Eddie was hiding, and search for any DNA to indicate he was there. He mentioned they might usher in images of any proof they discover there. This proof might show Eddie was hiding from the police as a result of he didn’t need the police to arrest him for his alleged crime of killing Chrissy.
Whereas there is no such thing as a proof of a weapon — we, because the viewers, know Eddie didn’t do it — the police should still attempt to discover an merchandise from Eddie’s house they are saying may very well be the weapon. The prosecutors will say, “You heard the knowledgeable say the one strategy to gouge somebody’s eye is to make use of such and such – perhaps a sickle… (they’ll) attempt to discover a comparable weapon in the home and say that is the homicide weapon,” Hashemi mentioned. The prosecutors will say there is no such thing as a blood, DNS, or hair on the weapon as a result of Eddie had wiped it clear.
Who To Placed on The Jury
One other important a part of the trial is the jury choice, Rice mentioned.
He mentioned the protection wouldn’t need anybody from Hawkins to be on the jury. As a substitute, they need misfits like Eddie or people who find themselves conversant in misfits like Eddie. They should “merely perceive Eddie was attempting to outlive in a world that he didn’t slot in,” Rice mentioned.
In the meantime, the Prosecutors would wish to have jurors who worth regulation and order, he mentioned. They must be the type who performs by the foundations – they see every thing in black and white.
“Eddie Munson can go to trial and be discovered responsible of three murders,” Rice mentioned.
Rice mentioned many individuals like Eddie are struggling within the authorized system. They’re rejects as a result of they don’t match the mould of the affluent particular person. As a substitute, they might be poor, having fun with hobbies most People don’t see as correct, or utilizing means to earn money that the common particular person views as illegal.
They face discrimination daily, identical to Eddie.
The character, Eddie, could have died, however many individuals confront the identical points because the Dungeon & Dragons gamers proven within the present.
“Eddie Munson is alive,” Rice mentioned. “He lives in each metropolis of America.”
Extra From Wealth of Geeks
This text was produced and syndicated by Wealth of Geeks.
Rasha is a die-hard bookaholic, however when she’s not studying, she watches TV reveals along with her husband. He is accountable for the distant as a result of he definitely does not belief her with one. If he did, they’d be watching “Regulation and Order” reruns all day. She is a former reporter who now works in the social work business, connecting folks with important sources and companies. Apart from that, Rasha is at present utilizing her superpower, writing, to ship the information.
