Watching the film today, I picked up on something that I missed the first time I read the book in high school, and missed this last time I read it as well. And frankly, as a kid who plans to go to law school next year, I'm kind of embarrased that I didn't catch it earlier. The novel, and every critical interpretation of it, establishes the Tom Robinson case as simply unwinnable. A black man cannot receive a fair trial in the south, and the verdict is already in hand. The fact that it took a few hours of deliberation as opposed to a few minutes is considered a moral victory, and "baby steps" in the right direction. But I disagree. I now believe that the case could have been won.
First off, a key point that Atticus raises is that neither Sherriff Tate nor Bob Ewell call a doctor. However, that does not preclude Atticus from calling a doctor after the fact. Or even a medical expert, who could have examined Mayella, and testified to the absence of evidence of rape. Atticus firmly establishes that Tom could not have beaten Mayella, the whole handedness thing. But he then assumes that this will also be applied to the rape charge. But assault is not the capital offense, rape is, and Atticus does not do near enough to establish that not only did Tom not rape Mayella, but that no rape ever occured. If Atticus had called in his own medical expert to examine Mayella, especially one with credibility (read: white), it would have gone a long way to securing a vote or two in the jury.
But Atticus' most egregious mistake is when Mayella is on the stand. Nervous, scared, and struggling to remember the rehearsed lie, she is an extremely unreliable witness. Atticus is polite in his cross-examination, and not near forceful enough. He pleads with Mayella, he tries to coax her into admitting the lie. But she digs in and defends the lie with fervor. As the famous Ayn Rand quote says, "honest people are never touchy about the matter of being trusted", and Mayella's explosion at Atticus and the jury shows her to be very touchy about it. After her rant and breakdown into tears is when Atticus makes the crucial mistake of the trial. He lets Mayella off the hook. This became excruciatingly apparent to me when in the movie, the judge looks at Atticus as if to ask if he has any more questions, and Gregory Peck gently shakes his head no. Even if the subtle act in the movie was not done in the book, either way, Atticus does not question Mayella any further. Atticus allowed Mayella's powerful, hysteric rant to be the final word on the subject.
Atticus should have asked her more questions. Let me rephrase, as that may be the understatement of the semester - Atticus should have fucking grilled her on the stand. Called as a witness, Mayella has to stay and answer any and all questions asked to her. She waived her right to protection under the 5th amendment when she testified to the rape under the prosecutor's questioning. She has absolutely no way out. Witnesses cannot just break down into tears and run off the witness stand. Now, if she had that type of massive breakdown after maybe 10 minutes of questioning, I wonder how long it would have taken Atticus to get to the truth. Atticus is clearly mentally superior to both Mayella and the prosecutor. If he kept at it, if he dug through the emotional walls, it was only a matter of time before Mayella would have broke down and admitted the truth. Whether it took a recess or three, multiple days, whatever, it was just a matter of time.
Atticus severely takes for granted that the only way to win the case is through a jury verdict - he should have tried to get the charges dismissed altogether. If he broke down Mayella into telling the truth and admitting that she and Bob Ewell made the charges up, the state would have no case. How could you prosecute a crime when the only evidence is two eyewitness, one of whom is the alleged victim herself, who says that the crime never happened? What, is the prosecutor going to recall Bob Ewell to say that Mayella was raped, after Mayella says that she wasn't? The state would have had no choice but to throw the case out.
So why wasn't Atticus more aggressive? The only thing I can think of is pity. He says that his pity does not extend so far as to put Tom's life on the line, but clearly it does. He lets her off the hook out of pity, and missed his best (perhaps only) chance to win the case, and left it up to a racist jury. It doesn't matter if you humiliate this girl in front of the whole country, if you expose her and her father to be lying bastards when a man's life is on the line. Atticus had the moral code to take on the case, and enough brains to pull it out. But in the end, he was not ruthless enough to win the case. His pity took priority over his killer instinct, and it may have cost Tom his life.
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