To Kill a Mockingbird - the trial

[kev67]

I have just finished reading this book. I enjoyed it, especially the Boo Radley strand. However I was a bit surprised by the trial of Tom Robinson. There did not seem to be enough cross questioning or enough witnesses called. The trial was over in a day. For example, why didn't they question the cinema proprietor on how often he had seen the Ewell children there? Why didn't Atticus ask Bob Ewell or Mayella or even the other Ewell children who gave the children the money to go to the cinema. If they said Bob, then everyone would be pretty sure they were lying. If they said Mayella then that would corroborate Tom's story. Another thing that struck me as odd was that if Tom frequently did little jobs for Mayella, why the news did not get back to the black community since the road by the Ewell's home seems to be the main way out of the black quarters. If one of Tom's neighbours had seen him, they would surely have asked him what he thought he was doing. His wife would go mental. I also thought it was a little weak that Tom should have a crippled right arm, making it improbable that he would hit Mayella on the left side of he face. This seems quite unlikely. I recently finished a book about rape, which said that the conviction rates for rape in the US were low, except in cases in which the victim was white and the defendant was black. The problem in many rape cases is that there is not enough evidence, so the trial comes down to his word against hers. If this was a book about racist rape trials, most black defendants would not have the advantage of being a cripple to enhance their credibility. I actually thought it was odd that Atticus had to ask the sheriff which side of Mayella's face was bruised: didn't anyone take any photographs? I wondered why Mayella had not undergone a medical examination to search for other signs of rape. Perhaps that was not done in the 1930s. Maycomb County seems to be a place where everyone knows everyone, and I wondered whether even the out of town farmers chosen as jurists would not already know about either the defendant or plaintiff. This seems prejudicial, but maybe that was the way it was then. All in all, I did not think was trial was up to John Grisham standards.

[cafolini]

It was not to standards because there was no trial at all. It was a well-executed conviction by people who knew what they were doing and were very stupid. That was the point Lee wanted to make and did make very well.

[kev67]

The judge, Heck Tate, the policeman, and Atticus Finch the defence lawyer were not portrayed as stupid or unfair. It was the jury who were portrayed as the problem. So why wasn't the trial run better?

[kev67]

I have been reading some of the critical responses here. Ann Engar wrote that it was "Voted best legal film of all time by the American Film Institute, cited by numerous lawyers as the book and fil, that most inspired their decisions to pursue a career in law, claimed to be the impetus for constructive changes in Southern justice during the civil rights movement." Maybe the trial was more realistic than I thought.

Incidently, I agreed with Malcolm Gladwell, it did seem rather odd for Atticus Finch to collude in covering up a homocide, notwithstanding that the perpetrator had a perfect defence.

Maybe that's a subtle point in the book: Atticus's judgement is not always perfect. Jem and Scout think their father is always right, but then they are children so they would.

[cafolini]

There was no need to show stupidity by letters. It was obvious.

[Eiseabhal]

Atticus asks why a doctor was not called. And he gets an answer. Photographers were being used in the thirties but generally in the cities. There are are lots of pictures of dead gangsters to be had in archives. This was a crime in a shack in the country, in a shack occupied by a poverty-stricken dysfunctional white family. The trial seems realistic enough to me. She wasn't writing in the same genre as Grisham so it is not going to be bogged down by procedural detail.

[kev67]

It still seems strange that Atticus did not ask more questions and cross-examine more witnesses. Why didn't Atticus ask more witnesses about the Ewell children going to the cinema? That must have been a rare and remarkable event. Why didn't he question more people about whether they'd seen Tom Robinson doing odd jobs for Mayella? Did Tom Robinson do odd jobs for other people free of charge? Could any of the other Ewell children have been put on the stand? When Atticus asked Heck Tate about which side of Mayella's face was marked, was he really relying on the sheriff's memory or was there any other documentary evidence? Surely there must have been. Why did Atticus not make more of Mayella's initial testimony in which she did not mention being punched by Tom (I don't think she did anyway). Did anyone examine the state of Tom Robinson's and Bob Ewell's knuckles?

Do you think any of the jury, apart from Cunningham, had any doubts about conviction? I dare say in most of those black defendant/white victim rape trials the jury really did believe the defendant was guilty. If it was only his word against hers then the jury would believe her because they did not want to believe that a white woman would consent to have sex with a black man. In this case however, there is circumstantial evidence and the reputation of the plaintiff's family that raises doubt. Would even a typical, racist jury convict a black man if they had doubts when they knew he could be executed for it?

[ennison]

You're missing the point.

[kev67]

Personally, I think Harper Lee's fellow southern writer, Flannery O Conner (does anyone have normal Christian names in the south) was right: To Kill a Mockingbird is a children's book. Maybe it's a young-adult book. It's still a good book; I loved the writing, but for me, the plot's a bit weak.

[Eiseabhal]

Several books which have children as the central characters are about children rather than for them. A High Wind in Jamaica, Spies, The Go-Between, Lord of The Flies etc. A literate teen can read and enjoy TKAM but you get more out of it as you age because it has what many good novels have: a wide range of characters and a diversity of theme. It is in effect a portrait of a community with many areas of the canvass used as illustration. It is not stylistically outstanding but so what, it has these other features.