TKaMB Feature Article Assignment - The Trial

The Maycomb Tribune

VERDICT: BLACK MAN CONVICTED OF RAPE

By JOSEPH T. UPPERSTONE, LEGAL CORRESPONDENT  Friday, July 09, 1931

  MAYCOMB: In the Maycomb County Courthouse, there are two concrete pillars, left over from when the original courthouse burnt down in 1856. These two pillars are the perfect symbols of justice in this place of law and order; justice will forever stand in the gallant south. This truth was yet again upheld when the verdict is unanimously passed by the representatives of Maycomb citizens, the jury, sentencing Thomas ‘Tom’ Robinson, a black man convicted of rape, a capital offense, to death.

  Thomas Robinson, aged 25, formerly a cotton and pecan picker for Mr. Link Deas, a Maycomb landowner, had been convicted of one charge of rape, a capital offense, for raping Ms. Mayella Violet Ewell, 19, unemployed. Despite a valiant fight by defense attorney Atticus Finch (top), the clear evidence from reliable, white witnesses had proved beyond a doubt that Tom Robinson is guilty of rape.

  Atticus Finch, the defense attorney for Tom Robinson, had accused the victim, Mayella Ewell, of ‘breaking a time-honored code of our society’, by which he implied that Ms. Ewell voluntarily kissed Tom Robinson and was beaten up by her father afterwards, the marks which she and her father claimed that was caused by Tom Robinson. He had also accused the case of being ‘a case of black and white’. He had indicated that he wished to file an appeal with the Supreme Court.

  Mr. Samuel Gown, President of the African-American Welfare Association, had praised Mr. Finch to be a “distinguished man who was the sole hero who dared to speak up on this time-honored taboo.” Mr. Gown also pledged the support of the AAWA to Tom Robinson.

  There had been 12 recorded cases of capital charges against Negroes, all initiated by white men. Of those, all of them had been convicted, and sentenced to death. The attorneys for them are all appointed by the court. None of the attorneys had filed appeals or taken further action, except Atticus Finch. Mr. Finch had hinted that he has received death threats from Mr. Robert Ewell.

  According to the Ewells, on the night of November twenty-first, Mayella Ewell was sitting on the front porch of the Ewell dwelling, when Tom Robinson passed by, and she asked him to help her chop up an old chiffarobe, but when she turned to return to the house, Robinson forced her onto the ground and “took advantage of her”.

  There had been small-scaled protests in Mobile over this crime in the black community. Reverend Skyes of the First Purchase African M.E. Church, which Tom Robinson belonged to, had expresses grief and condemned the verdict of Guilty. The trial had taken a full day for the jury to return a verdict, a record amount of time for the trial of a black man. Senior trial judge Matthew Hall told us, “This is yet one more testimonial to the skill of Atticus Finch…I think he’s the best lawyer in Maycomb County.” 

   There had been an unconfirmed report that Jean Louise Finch and Jeremy Atticus Finch, Atticus Finch’s children, was present at the trial and had watched from the colored balcony. Also, according to the report, Jean Louise Finch had asked Mr. Finch after the trial, “Will there ever be justice for all in this land, Atticus?”

  “Well,” Atticus Finch replied, “We’ll see.”