Unfair Trials of the 1930s In To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, colored people are treated unfairly. The setting of the book takes place in Alabama in the 1930s. Back then trying to win a trial as a colored person was nearly impossible. Nowadays colored people are treated more fair than Tom Robinson was. But what makes this topic relevant to American students now? The American justice system has changed a lot in the past eighty-seven years making Tom Robinson’s trial unfair. In the 1930s there was no Civil Rights Act. “The Civil Rights Act of 1964…” (Civil Rights Act). The Civil Rights Act makes it so that people of all races, color, sex, etc. are all treated fairly in daily life. “... which ended segregation in public places and banned …show more content…
Luckily for Tom Robinson, Atticus was a very dedicated lawyer and did not care for what type of ethnicity he was defending “I’m simply defending a Negro” (Lee 86). Even though Atticus had proven all the facts to the jury, “... this case is as simple as black and white” (Lee 231) they still voted Tom guilty of all charges. The jury was all white making it so that the colored man, Tom Robinson, would be guilty. Because of this Tom Robinson would die later in the book. In Tom Robinson’s trial, even getting a semi-fair trial was lucky for him. Most states in America would not have given a colored man a fair trial. A colored man would be wrongfully accused, most of the time. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Tom Robinson was wrongfully accused. “Guilty… guilty… guilty… guilty…” (Lee 211). This is unimaginable to recent generations of the American people. Today, in this generation, getting a fair trial is normal to the majority of people, but Tom Robinson never got one.
Tom Robinson never got a fair trial because of his ethnicity. Laws in the past few decades make it so that everyone can get a fair trial. Because Tom was colored, he was discriminated and treated unfairly in his trial. It is possible that if Tom Robinson’s trial was in this day and age, he would be alive. Changes in the law or the way people think of someone different, may save that person’s
In To Kill a Mockingbird, a conflict that connects to the theme innocence should be protected is the death of Tom Robinson. Once found guilty, Tom Robinson was placed in prison. Because of his race, Robinson knew he would be sentenced the death penalty. Soon after being convicted, Robinson tried to escape. He knew that he didn’t deserve to be punished. While trying to escape, he was shot 17 times by p...
The Scottsboro Trials, Brown v. Mississippi, and trial of Tom Robinson in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. The purpose of this essay is to compare three very similar cases, the Scottsboro Trials, Brown v. Mississippi, and the fictional trial of Tom Robinson in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird; and to prove why the defendant in the third trial never had a chance. Each took place in the rural South in the 1920’s and 30’s and involved the unfair conviction of young black males by all-white juries pressured by the threat of mob violence.
Therefore the colour of Tom Robinson’s skin was the defining factor in the jury’s decision. Since the jury declared Tom Robinson guilty, that reveals his fate of going to jail and eventually being killed which is obviously an injustice based on the discrimination against him.
Tom Robinson was negatively affected by racism because it lead to his death after an unfair trial. Atticus says “Tom was a dead man the minute Mayella Ewells opened her mouth and screamed”(Lee 323). Since Tom, a black man, was accused of raping Mayella, a white woman, Tom wasn’t going to win the court case because he was a black man against a white woman. Tom Robinson said ”Mr. Finch, if you was a n…. like me, you’d be scared too.”(Lee 261). This quote proves that Tom believed that he didn't think that he wasn’t going to win the trial, and that's why he tried to run from jail so he had somewhat of a chance. Tom Robinson’s life was ruined by racism was.
The trial of Tom Robinson v. Mayella Ewell, the evidence is pointing towards innocence, but the jury is made up of white men in the south, and the verdict is guilty. The case in To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee shows how Atticus tells the readers how narrow-minded people can be towards other races.
He was a black man, accused of raping a white women. The Tom Robinson trial was a true trial of good versus evil. Scout’s father was chosen to defend Tom in his trial and tried his hardest providing with all the information that Tom was a innocent man. He fought, “The witness for the state, with the exception of the sheriff of Maycomb County, have presented themselves to you gentlemen, to this court, in the cynical confidence that their testimony would not be doubted, confident that you gentlemen would go along with them on the assumption—the evil assumption—that all Negroes lie, that all Negroes are basically immoral beings, that all Negro men are not to be trusted around our women, an assumption that one associates with minds of their calibre.”(Lee 205) At this point in Atticus’ closing speech he and just about everybody else in that courtroom knew Tom Robinson was innocent. The evidence just did not match up with what was presented. Though Tom was innocent, the jury didn’t look past the color of his skin, so was sentenced to
Tom Robinson, the African American, was a man of innocence who was accused of rape, a crime that he did not commit. If the jury had realized that they were treating Tom unequally and unfairly the verdict and outcome of the trial would be utterly different. In the trials of Tom Robinson and OJ Simpson, the amendment of the bill of rights seemed to be only considered for OJ. These two trials demonstrate how race, social status, and money have an effect on the current law system of the United
Nearly the whole last half of the book is about racism. The attitude of the whole town is that Tom Robinson, because he is black and,"…all Negroes lie,…all Negroes are basically immoral beings,…all Negro men are not to be trusted around our women…"(Lee 207), will be found guilty regardless of how good a case Atticus makes for him. There was substantial amount of evidence that suggests his innocence. Even the prosecution's two witnesses' stories contradicted each other. The jury did not give a guilty verdict it gave a racist verdict. Not a verdict based on fact, but a verdict based on the color of a man's skin. This is important because the author was not making this racism up; it was what it was like in those times. She is trying to show how ignorant and blind people can be just because of differences between them, as well as how society treats racial minorities.
the job of proving the innocence of a negro man, Tom Robinson who is unfairly tried in
...ir if they tried. In our courts, when it's a white man's word against a black man's, the white man always wins. They're ugly, but those are the facts of life” (295). From the very beginning of the trial, the jury was going to find Tom Robinson guilty since it was a black man's word against a white man’s word. The all-white jury never wanted to see a black person win against a white person. After he is found guilty, Tom is sent to a prison where he tries to escape but is shot to death by the prison guards. Mr. Underwood writes an editorial in which he compares Tom being shot to death to hunters shooting mockingbirds. Like a mockingbird, Tom never caused any harm to anyone. Tom is “shot” by the jury when they assume that he is guilty because he is a black man and his alleged victim is white. In the end, an innocent man was found guilty because of the color of his skin.
In the 1930’s, many African American men were wrongly accused of rape and murder. The issue of racism is brought up in the book “To Kill a Mockingbird” when Scout overhears her teacher saying that it’s a great thing that this is happening to Tom Robinson because the black men are getting too comfortable thinking that they’re mighty. Racism didn’t only affect Tom Robinson, but it also affected those who supported him. The lives of Scout and her family are changed when Scout's father, who is a lawyer, steps in and defends Tom Robinson. Atticus’ lawsuit affects Scout and his children in several ways.
Tom Robinson’s trial, and in fact his entire life, was badly affected by racism. It is truly a testament to the corruption of society when a person who has earned a bad reputation is held in higher esteem than a person who was born with it, as is the case with Bob Ewell and Tom Robinson. Even though Tom was obviously honest in his testament, the jury sided with Bob Ewell because he was white. They made this decision despite the fact that the Ewell family was widely known to be a worthless part of society. Jem, not being racially prejudiced, could not understand this mentality. As Atticus pointed out, “If you (Jem) had been on the jury, son, and eleven other boys like you, Tom would be a free man.”
Despite the unwavering dedication of Atticus Finch in “To Kill a Mockingbird”, the absence of evidence, and a moving courtroom speech, Tom Robinson is convicted of a crime that he did not commit. What would have been the outcome if Tom Robinson's trial was held in the 21st century? A jury today, presented with the same evidence, would find Tom Robinson not guilty. Atticus did a good job and proved that Tom could not have beaten Mayella because his left arm was injured. The only eye witness was Mayella, whose own statements were conflicting; she claimed that Tom both did and did not assault her. Her testimony also differed from that of her father. There was never any specific testimony concerning the rape, only assault. The prosecutor would never have been allowed to repeatedly refer to Tom as "boy" during this trial with the lack of tolerance held for racism in today’s society. The most obvious form of discrimination in To Kill a Mockingbird is racism; however, there are other types of prejudice and discrimination that typify relationships among the novel’s characters.
Tom Robinson is a hard-working African American in the town of Maycomb, Alabama. However, his life takes a tragic turn when he is accused of raping Mayella Ewell, daughter of the town’s least respected citizen, Tom Ewell. When he goes to court , even with the very capable Atticus Finch as his lawyer, his future looks grim. Regardless of the information that Tom Robinson and Atticus had provided that proved Tom as innocent, he was still found guilty. The reader can then conclude that the only explanation for this is that Tom Robinson was guilty not of rape, but of his being black. During the trial, Atticus states that, “She was white, and she tempted a Negro. She did something that in our society is unspeakable: she kissed a black man. Not an old uncle, but a strong young Negro man. No code mattered to her before she broke it, but it comes crashing down on her afterwards.” Atticus also states that, "Which, gentlemen, we know is in itself a lie as black as Tom Robinson's skin, a lie I do not have to point out to you. You know the truth, and the truth is this: some Negroes lie, some Negroes are immoral, some Negro men are not to be trusted around women—black or white. But this is a truth that applies to the human race and to no particular race of men. There is not a person in this courtroom who has never told a lie, who has never done an immoral thing, and there is no man living who has never looked upon a
More than half of the movie is seen at the trial, which leaves little time for the audience to build the idea that the novel builds up. This is the injustice done to racial matters, that is skimmed over and left to the viewers to determine their own opinions (Smykowski). The movie version of To Kill a Mockingbird ignores that racism is the reason Tom Robinson is convicted.