Ryan Jackson

Mr. McConnell

English

January 27, 2017

To Kill a Mockingbird Trial Analysis Essay

The definition of a jury to me is a group of people who are asked as American citizens to

give a legal verdict based on evidence in court. In Maycomb County, things are a little different.

No matter what, the black man always loses in Maycomb. Maycomb wants to show justice of

their town by showing the world that Tom Robinson, a black male accused of rape, is guilty.

Maycomb County is a town trying to show justice by throwing an innocent black man in court

and hope to put him in jail, however, my verdict is different. Some evaluation of the evidence

collected in the book and the universe of obligation of Maycomb County shows why the jurys

verdict was different than mine.

Maycomb County is a racist, white county whos verdict was to declare Tom Robinson

guilty for raping a white woman. Maycomb tries to show, what they believe is, justice by

throwing innocent black people who they think are all criminals because of their race. People

believe that they are always guilty because of the rumors made up about them by white people.

In my opinion, Maycombs jury in the Tom Robinson case was not the definition of a jury to me

because they did not pay attention to the evidence that was provided in the case and instead went

by the universe of obligation which declares that black men are not respected or treated as well

as white men. The jurys verdict was unjust because they did not listen to Tom Robinsons side of
the story and only payed attention to the main fact that he raped a white woman. The reason Tom

Robinson was declared guilty in the case was because of his race, not because of what he did.

My verdict is that Tom Robinson is declared not guilty because of the evidence given in

the trial from Toms side of the story and because of the evidence that I found and used in the

book. Tom Robinson is an innocent black man who is forced into trial in court because he was

accused of raping Mayella Ewell who is a well-known white woman. (Lee 230) I believe that my

verdict is the truth because unlike the jurys verdict, race is not a factor. I also believe that he is

not guilty because unlike the jury, I found certain parts of Tom Robinsons side and used that

information to help decide my verdict. Therefore, I would declare him not guilty.

Maycomb Countys universe of obligation may have affected the jurys decision whether

Tom Robinson is guilty or not for being accused of raping a white woman. In my opinion, I think

that Maycombs universe of obligation did affect the result of the trial because Maycomb has a

deep disrespect for African Americans, men in general. (Lee 210) The universe of obligation of

Maycomb declares that black men are the least respected and because Tom Robinson is a black

male, that declares that he is very disrespected therefore they will claim him guilty. Another

thing that could have affected the trial that has to do with universe of obligation, is the white

women. White women are looked at very importantly because they are delegate and lady-like.

Due to Mayella Ewell being a white woman, the jury was for sure to protect Mayella and declare

Tom Robinson guilty.

In conclusion, this essay was to show that my verdict was different from the jurys verdict

because instead of listening to the evidence in the court, they just saw that the man was black so

they knew that he was going to be declared guilty. However, my verdict disagreed because I did

not use race as a factor in deciding weather he is guilty or not. I decided that Tom Robinson is
not guilty because I payed close attention to the evidence that was given to me from the text in

the court scene. Tom Robinson lost his battle against the white jury who declared him guilty of

raping a white woman. The jury thought they were serving justice by throwing him in prison,

however, they are not. They do not see that what they are doing is wrong because their universe

of obligation shows that blacks are the least respected and that they are criminals who deserve to

be throw in jail. They do not understand the true meaning of justice.