Tom Robinson Trial Essay

People tend to believe that trial by jury is the best way to keep the trial completely fair to both parties involved. In some cases, though, it is the opposite of that. One of these cases is in To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. In the trial, Tom Robinson, a black man, was accused of raping Mayella Ewell, the daughter of a white family. Tom’s attorney, Atticus, was able to prove that Tom was innocent, but the verdict was that Tom was guilty. Although Atticus did his job in proving that Tom was indeed innocent, the prejudice of the town, and the intimidation from Bob Ewell made the jury vote against Tom Robinson, resulting his his prosecution and eventually his death. The prosecution of Tom Robinson was because of the prejudice of the town.

Bob Ewell intimidated Mayella to lie on the witness stand, which led the jury to believe that she was telling the truth. You could tell that Mayella is under the intimidation of her father when she is testifying: “Mayella looked at her father, who was sitting with his chair tipped against the railing He sat up straight and waited for her to answer.” (Lee 245). As they were interrogating Mayella, she would constantly look at her father, as if she was waiting for approval. This implies that her father told her what to do and what to say. She seems like she wants to tell the truth because of all her hesitation, but her father threatened her to lie. Mayella demonstrates this because she was constantly looking for approval from her father. Aside from Mayella, Bob Ewell additionally intimidated the jury into convicting Tom. Even if the jury had the confidence to go against the prejudice of Maycomb, their efforts were shot down because of Bob Ewell. When Jem comes back he asks “How long have they been out?” and Reverend Sykes says, “‘bout thirty minutes” (Lee 279). The jury took a long time to decide on the verdict of the trial, meaning that there wasn't a verdict right away. Some people of the jury knew what was right, or else there wouldn’t have been a question of what the verdict was . When every member of the jury said, “guilty… guilty… guilty…