Tom Robinson Trial Essay

In To Kill a Mockingbird, the trial at hand between Mayella and Tom presents a problem: to decide if Tom is innocent or guilty of raping Mayella. The evidence recognized in the book supports the opinion that Tom Robinson is innocent. Supporting details in the case that back the fact that Tom Robinson is innocent includes, Mayella having a consolidated time answering questions, the fact that Tom has a short right arm that was remarkably damaged in a cotton gin, and how there are suggestions that Mayella has a sexual relationship with her father, all help in supporting the opinion of innocence, for Tom Robinson. On the stand, Mayella was having a difficulties answering most of the questions given out to her. She was not really open to admitting confidential information. If she was open to admitting, this would make her look deficient. If she is guilty, information that would make her look lousy could make it even more clear to the jury that she is guilty as stated in the text, “”When he’s riled, has he ever beaten you?..” …show more content…
Since Tom has the short arm, Tom could not be the one to take dominance of Mayella because instead of the lies she has disclosed, she called Tom over to simply break up a chiffarobe for her. Once he was inside the house, Mayella escalated the situation and started to kiss Tom. The text states, “”She says what her papa do to her don’t count.”” Some will say it is not a sexual relationship between Mayella and Bob but when Bob gets tipsy, as we learned from the last quote, he can get pretty riled up and most likely abuses Mayella physically and sexually which Mayella probably welcomes now. This explains that Tom could not have abused and sexually assaulted her because of his short arm and because of the statement Mayella had said to Tom about what her father does to her does not