Tom's Guilt In To Kill A Mockingbird

In my eyes, Mr. Gilmer does not do a great job of proving Tom’s guilt. My reasoning behind this is because of how Mr. Gilmer provides no real evidence to prove that Tom is guilty of raping Mayella. Instead, he relies upon the word of two white people against one Negro man. Clearly, the majority of the jury thought otherwise because they found Tom guilty. I believe that this might not only be because of the racism during that time period, but also because of the condescending way in which Mr. Gilmer spoke to Tom. I think that because of this, it gave him a false aura of power and intelligence; to me, this might also play a possible role in the jury’s decision. However, our opinions may be different because of the time period in which we were raised. Back then, racism was a common concept; on the other hand, in modern day, racism is not tolerated in society. I believe that these two very different time eras play a major role in the viewpoints of this case.

Judging by what people say about Tom, he does not seem like the kind of person to do something like that. For example, during the court case, Mr. Link Deas announced to the whole audience that “I just want the whole lot of you to know one thing right now. That boy’s worked for me eight years an’ I ain’t had a speck o’trouble outa him. Not a speck.” Not only this, but there was also no true evidence as to Tom’s guilt. I think that Tom should have been considered innocent until the Ewells could prove that he was guilty. Nevertheless, the jury believed that Tom was guilty because of the color of his skin. After much debate the jury of white men believed the two white witnesses over the black defendant. However, not the whole jury thought that Tom was guilty. One of the Cunninghams was on the jury and fought very hard for Tom’s side, according to Atticus. Sadly, in the end the jury found Tom Robinson guilty of something that he did not