Essay On The Court System In To Kill A Mockingbird

In the book To Kill A Mockingbird Harper Lee addresses a heavy subject, through Atticus, about our court systems that should be challenged. He tells the reader during the closing of the Tom Robinson case, “our courts are great levelers, and in our courts all men are created equal” (274). This statement should be challenged due to the reality of the subject. Most men and women wish our court systems were equal, but they are never going to be. This is due to the fact that people will always hold grudges, and will express hate for someone else, no matter how fair or equal we try and make things. During the 1930’s the court systems were not equal by any standard, with the Tom Robinson case being a great example. “In our courts, when it’s a white man’s word against a black man’s, the white man always wins” (299). This quote comes straight from Atticus’s own mouth, and goes to prove that blacks during that time period had the short end of the stick. Besides being treated unfairly on a daily …show more content…
It was called the Scottsboro Boys Trial. During this case a group of black teenage boys had nothing wrong and were accused of raping a pair of young white girls. They did not touch the girls, and the girls used them as a distraction so they would not get caught for crossing the state lines. The jury found the boys guilty in the local, state, and even Supreme Court and sentenced them to death. They were even found guilty on a retrial in which one of the young girls that was “raped” confessed that the rape never happened. How ridiculous is that. A quote from the book To Kill a Mockingbird states, “Tom was a dead man the minute Mayella Ewell opened her mouth and screamed” (323). This quote show how unfair the court systems were in the book similar to that in the Scottsboro Boys Trial. Both trials go to prove that the court systems are unfair due to discrimination and have a right to be