Tom Robinson Trial

The moment Atticus is appointed to be the defender of Tom Robinson, he knows that if he really takes on this role of a defender, Maycomb’s society is going to ostracize him. Defending a black male who is accused of having raped a white woman is not only Alabama in the 1930s a capital offense in Alabama in the 1930s, but lands him in difficulties as he and his kids have to face hostility in Maycomb. A classmate tells Scout that “my folks say your daddy was a disgrace an’ that nigger oughta hand from the water-tank!” (Lee 87). She discovers what Maycomb’s population thinks of her father. Since Atticus takes on the duty of defending Tom Robinson, he is called a “nigger-lover” (Lee 117) and told that he is no better “than the trash he works

He was “born and bred” (Lee 5) and “related by blood or marriage to nearly every family in the town” (Lee 5) he can afford to offend Maycomb’s people, nevertheless, he will be reelected to the state legislature as every year. Atticus knows what he is getting into by taking on this case, and he knows that he cannot win against the racial animus. As a result, the social fabric in which the trial will take place, illustrates the typical class stratification in which racism and inequality rule.

3.2 The Trial – Its rights and structure

The previous analysis depicted an environment of racialism and racism, where people aim to enforce their white supremacy when the trial of Tom Robinson begins. A traditional court in the United States usually consists of the representative of the jurisdiction of state, federal or local level. Typically, a judge, a jury, a prosecutor and an attorney form the legal representation of a court. In To Kill a Mockingbird the court resembles a state court in Alabama. Still, code of procedure should be followed, and no constitutional right should be violated. Additionally, the natural law on which the justice

This description leaves a bitter taste in the reader’s mouth feeling that the result of the trial is already foreshadowed. Maycomb not being a big city, leaves room for the administration of the town to inhabit rooms of the courthouse and the “inhabitants of these offices were creatures of their environment, little gray-faced men, they seemed untouched by wind or sun.” (Lee 185), subsequently, they support as representatives of the state legislature the stereotype of boring unpolitical bureaucrats, who follows paragraphs rather than taking action. In this atmosphere starts the trial of Tom Robinson, who is accused of having raped Mayella Ewell.

The judge is called Taylor and looks like “most judges (…) amiable, white haired, (with a) slightly ruddy-faced” (Lee 187). With this representative of the state jurisdiction, Lee presents a stereotype of a judge, if he would not have been talked about as “a man who ran his court with an alarming informality” (Lee 187). Judge Taylor has assigned Atticus the case of Tom Robinson notwithstanding that Atticus has already made himself