In To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Atticus uses big picture obvious statements as well as morality to try and convince the jury of Tom Robinson’s innocence. Atticus uses big picture obvious statements to convince the jury of Tom Robinson’s innocence. He states things that everybody in the room knows to emphasize it. For example, in his speech where Atticus says “This case is not a difficult one, it requires no minute sifting of complicated facts, but it does require you to be sure beyond all reasonable doubt as to the guilt of the defendant. To begin with, this case should never have come to trial. This case is as simple as black and white” (Lee 271.) This quote excellently summarizes the trial and how simple it was. The judge, the …show more content…
Atticus is telling the jury that they don’t need to decide whether they think he is innocent or guilty, but whether or not they will willingly convict an innocent African-American man for a crime they know Tom didn’t commit. Also, when Atticus said “The state has not produced one iota of medical evidence to the effect of the crime Tom Robinson is charged with the testimony of two witnesses whose evidence has not only been called into serious question on cross-examination but has been flatly contradicted by the defendant. The defendant is not guilty, but someone else in the courtroom is” (Lee 271.) This quote is evidence for the first quote. It tells the jury, that they don’t need to think about the case at all, the prosecution just gave eye witness testimonies that were flimsy at best. The saying is innocent until proven guilty, not …show more content…
Tom Robinson was found guilty and was sentenced to death. Even decades later this speech is still important. Evidence of this is the case of Kirk Odom. In 1981 eighteen-year-old Kirk Odom was accused of rape and theft. Evidence of this is “The officer pulled a sketch of an unidentified black man out of his pocket and invited Odom to agree that the person in the drawing looked strikingly like him. “I said, ‘No, it doesn’t look like me,’” Odom recalls. Then the officer took the teenager’s name and address and allowed him to walk away thinking that was the end of that. A few days later, Odom was arrested and charged with a brutal crime.The victim had seen her assailant only fleetingly and in the dark, and the composite drawing that had been based on her description – the one that the police officer had thought looked just like him – referred to a black male of “medium complexion” when Odom’s skin is very dark. He also had a convincing alibi, having been asleep at his mother’s house at the time of the attack. With such shaky evidence, Odom assumed that the authorities would soon realize their mistake and the whole nightmare would go away. “I didn’t think anything was going to come of this, because I hadn’t done anything,” he says” (Pilkington.) This quote shows just how racism affected trials even decades after Atticus had been delivered. The prosecution had no real evidence to speak of, and Kirk even had evidence