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Tom Robinson Trial In To Kill A Mockingbird

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In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, when Jem realizes how naive he was to believe that the jury would find Tom Robinson innocent, he becomes disillusioned with the people of Maycomb and begins to believe that everyone in the town is corrupt. The novel takes place in Maycomb Alabama, in the 1930s, and is told from the perspective of a young girl named Scout. In Maycomb County, the trial of Tom Robinson, a black man, is going on and he is on trial for his life. He is on trial because he was accused of raping Miss Mayella Ewell, a young white lady of the county. During the trial Scout and Jem, her brother, are watching the trial from the colored balcony and are hearing their father, Atticus, who is also Tom’s lawyer, give his speech …show more content…

I don’t see how we can’t”(270). This quote demonstrates Jem’s confidence in his father, as well as his innocence. In Maycomb, if you were a black man being accused of raping a white woman, ten out of ten times you were going to be charged and most likely killed. Jem, being a young boy, did not realize this as the trial was taking place. Instead, he firmly believed that the jury would base their verdict off of true facts and evidence, not racial discrimination. This demonstrated Jem’s innocence by showing that he was oblivious to the fact that the town didn’t care, if Tom was black, he would be convicted no matter what because it was so easy for the to scapegoat him. Later on in the novel, there is a scene that takes place in Miss Maudie’s house. Miss Maudie is Scout’s neighbor, and at her house they are discussing the trial and people of the town when Jem states, “It’s like bein’ a caterpillar in a cocoon, that’s what it is. Like somethin’ asleep wrapped up in a warm place. I always thought Maycomb folks were the best folks, least that’s what they seemed like”(288). In this quote, the caterpillar in the cocoon represented youth and

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In To Kill a Mockingbird by harper Lee, despite of him having a public trial, Tom Robinson, an innocent man was proven guilty, also his trial that was completely and utterly unfair, one-sided, and even discriminatory. This novel takes place in Maycomb, Alabama, a made up town. Robinson was working for the Ewell’s and one day Tom was invited into the house to fix a door. Tom Robinson was accused of raping and abusing a white woman, Mayella Ewell, when her father is the one who abused her. The jury had a lack of evidence to prove that Tom was guilty, and also ignored the evidence that proves his innocence.

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Gentleman of the jury, today we have heard the accusations against Tom Robinson. He is accused of rape. I, Atticus Finch, have been appointed as Mr. Robinson’s defense and I urge you to strongly believe that he is telling the truth. In Mr. Heck Tate’s testimony he stated that Tom Robinson has raped Bob Ewell’s daughter called Mayella.

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In a small town in Maycomb, Alabama, there was a rape trial where a lawyer named Atticus defended Tom Robinson, a black man. Mayella Ewell was the woman who claimed she was raped and Bob Ewell was her father. In the end, Tom Robinson was convicted of rape and was shot and killed when he tried to escape prison. Even though Tom Robinson was convicted, Bob Ewell was still bitter toward Atticus because he defended Tom To get back at Atticus, Bob Ewell attacked Jem and Scout and tried to kill them. Bob did not succeed at hurting the children because Arthur Radley saved them and killed Bob Ewell by stabbing him with his own knife.

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Maycomb County and its people were affected greatly by the Tom Robinson case. Atticus was defending Tom Robinson against Mayella Ewell. Mayella had said that Tom had raped her. Some had different opinions than others. It was an unfair case that should not have ended the way it did.

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A man by the name of Tom Robinson is on trial for the rape of a girl by the name of Mayella Ewell. In this trial Tom can be considered innocent be the fact of his left arm is useless. “He [got] it caught in a cotton gin, caught it in Mr. Dolphus Raymond’s cotton gin when he was a boy… like to bleed to death… tore all the muscles loose from his bones-” (Lee 249). Tom is convicted of this crime against Mayella , which is a supposed beating, even though it is lead almost exclusively with the left hand, which Tom cannot use. Tom Robinson is a gentleman and also a very kind and generous man.

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Tom Robinson’s trial began with Heck Tate as the prosecution's first witness. Tate, a venerable man, did not act like a truant - he answered all of the questions to the best of his ability. On the other hand, Bob Ewell, a thin man with crepey skin, displayed a level of impertinence with his obstreperous philippics against Tom Robinson punctuating his testimony. Judge Taylor and Atticus, however, proved him to be an asinine liar, and Bob Ewell ended his testimony with an impotent tirade about how being left-handed had nothing to do with the case. Mayella Ewell was the next witness, and her testimony proved that beneath the veneer, she was the loneliest person in Maycomb.

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Knowing this, Jem concludes that the Maycomb County justice system needs unbiased people to join the jury. Here, Atticus is telling Jem that if he were on the jury, the outcome would have been different, “‘If you had been on that jury, son, and eleven other boys like you, Tom would be a free man. ’”(294) This shows that even Atticus, a lawyer, agrees with Jem that the justice system is wrong. With Atticus agreeing with him it shows that Jem is saying intelligent things and that he is not saying things that are random and

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In the novel To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, the story is set in the 1900’s, Maycomb, Alabama. During this time there was racism in the south and segregation which separated the whites and blacks from everything. There was also the Great Depression, the whole country was poor and people living in the country had to trade and do other jobs for people to either pay them off or to buy something from them. The trial in this book is about Mayella and Bob Ewell, two white people, claiming and arguing that Tom Robinson, a black person, raped Mayella Ewell. This trial is really important because at that time in the south, white people took advantage of black people and their kindness and thought they would take that or shut up just because they were black.

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Jem was confused and frustrated, Atticus was upset and he felt as if he had let Tom Robinson down. Atticus tells Jem that a white man's word always beats a black mans, Jem was upset that Tom did not get a fair trial, but what Atticus had said shows that Maycomb was a town of racism a black man could not get a fair trial because he was up against a white male. After Tom’s trial Toms family had brought Atticus and his family some food for Atticus being his lawyer and trying his best at the trial. Days have passed and Calpurnia told Atticus and his family that Tom made an attempt to escape jail and by doing so he was shot dead. Finding out about Tom's death Atticus felt as if it was the right thing for him to tell Toms wife that he had passed away.

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Before Jem knew the degree of how much everyone discriminated black people, he thought that Atticus was going to win the case. He even says, “Don’t fret, Reverend, we’ve won it,” (Lee, 1960, p. 212). After Tom Robinson is ruled guilty on the case, a crying Jem asks, “How could they do it, how could they?” (Lee, 1960, p. 216). The first quote shows that Jem thinks that Atticus clearly has more compelling evidence and doesn’t take into account that Tom Robinson is black and because of that, he’s going to lose the court case.

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Emily Callan Due Date: Tuesday, November 4th I am reading the book To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee and I am on page 281. In this journal I will be predicting and… I predict that Tom Robinson will be convicted of raping Mayella Ewell because of the racism and bias he is facing.

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1604 Words | 7 Pages

In chapters 17-24 in To Kill A Mockingbird, Jem and Scout observe their father in court defending Tom Robinson (a black man) from the accusations of the Bob Ewell (a "low grade ' ' white man). Bob Ewell accuses Tom Robinson of sexually assaulting his daughter; Mayella Ewell. Before the fate of Tom Robinson is given in the possession of the jury, both lawyers have a final attempt at convincing the jury that Tom Robinson should/shouldn 't be prosecuted. Atticus starts off his closing remarks with the fact that he believes that the case should have never come to trial and that the case "”is as simple as black and white."

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He even points out this subtle anonymous fact. “If you had been on that jury, son and eleven other boys like you, Tom would be a free man, said Atticus. So far nothing in your life has interfered with your reasoning process.” (Lee 295). This shows that Jem has little to no bias and looks purely at the facts, something that they could use a lot more in courts then and now.

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921 Words | 4 Pages

Jem is clearly conflicted over Tom being guilty. Jem unlike the other Maycomb residents realizes the crudeness and unfairness of the case. Everyone knows that Atticus had given all factual evidence but Tom was guilty because he was black. In Today’s society the same goes. From the New York Times Article, “Blacks were also slightly more likely to be sentenced to prison than whites.

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Jem further understood the true meaning of moral courage when he saw Atticus defending Tom Robinson, a black man. Although Atticus was hugely outnumbered and even cornered by Mr Cunningham and some other people, he did not back down from them. Instead, he seemed even more determined to win the case and prove Tom Robinson 's innocence to all of Maycomb County. Almost everyone in Maycomb County had criticised Atticus and his children for taking up the case of defending Tom Robinson and they were even called "nigger lovers" by many. At first, Jem did not understand why his father chose to defend Tom Robinson when he knew that people would whisper and gossip about it and that the possibility of him winning the case was very low.

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