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Tom Robinson Court

Decent Essays

In To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Atticus Finch said, “...our courts are great levelers, and in our courts all men are created equal” (Lee 274). Atticus meant once a person steps into a courtroom, his or her socio-economic standing, race, gender, or religion does not matter. That statement is correct when it comes to the spirit of the judicial system, but it is not true in practice. Overall the courts in the United States do not treat all people equally. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Tom Robinson was convicted of raping Mayella Ewell. This got him sent to a prison camp. There would be no issue with this conviction if there had been any solid evidence. Mayella never went to a doctor about the alleged rape, and the only witness didn’t even see anything happen. The case against Robinson was purely circumstantial evidence. There was most certainly reasonable doubt that he did it, but he was black. In Maycomb people thought of African-Americans as untrustworthy animals, so the jury convicted him. They decided that Robinson didn’t deserve to live because he was black, and Mayella …show more content…

Jeffery was driving and got pulled over for a minor infraction, and was asked if he was on any medications. He told the truth and told the police about his morphine prescription, and was immediately taken to jail. It took over a year to get the not guilty verdict. Jeffery had a signed letter from his doctors that said he could drive with the morphine. People have a prejudice against people who take morphine because it is a commonly abused drug, but that did not make everyone who had to take morphine bad. If Jeffrey hadn’t had the funds to get a good lawyer, he would have been called guilty. Jeffrey was already depressed when this happened, and it caused him to go off his medication. This was a very dangerous thing to do because of how the body gets used to

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