Chapter Four highlights Atticus’s lack of hypocrisy. Scout says to Miss Maudie “Atticus don’t do anything to Jem and me in the house that he don’t do in the yard.” This is backed up by Miss Maudie’s statement “Atticus Finch is the same in his house as he is on the public streets.”
Chapter Nine brings the news that Atticus will defend a Negro, Tom Robinson, in court. The trial is a matter of honour for Atticus, he feels he should not be defending Tom but as he explains “If I didn’t I couldn’t hold my head up in town”. He does not believe he will win the case but will try anyway because, “Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try and win.” Atticus is very realistic about the case he is taking up.
Jem and Scout feel that they have a boring father and that Atticus can do nothing like the fathers of other children at school. “He never went hunting, he did not play poker or fish or drink or smoke.” In Chapter Ten scout asks Miss Maudie what Atticus can do, neither Jem or Scout are very impressed that he can construct a ‘water-tight will’, is the best chequer- player in Maycomb or can play a Jew’s harp. Lee rekindles the children’s respect and admiration of Atticus when they find out, “Atticus Finch was the deadest shot in Maycomb in his time”, from Miss Maudie after he shoots the mad-dog Tim Johnson.
The lynch mob, who come to deal with Tom Robinson, in Chapter Fifteen, show Maycomb-style justice. They are lead by Mr Cunnigham and are trying to overturn the rule of law. Scout, Jem and Dill follow Atticus down to the jail where he stays with Tom at the jail and stops the mob initially, but it is Scout who manages to disperse the crowd when she talks to Mr Cunningham about his entailment to Atticus and his son Walter. Making him realise what he is doing he tells the rest of the men to clear out. This shows some optimism in the legal system and is a ‘baby step’ towards a non-racial community.
Chapter Sixteen is the morning of and the time leading up to the trial of Tom Robinson. Everyone makes an appearance in the courtroom; only Miss Maudie refuses to go, saying that watching someone on trial for his life is like attending a Roman circus. This is because you are in a way watching someone condemned to death. The crowd camps in the town square to eat lunch. Jem, Scout, and Dill wait for most of the crowd to enter the courthouse so that they can slip in at the back and prevent Atticus from noticing them. However, they wait too long and no seats are available, they succeed in getting seats only when Reverend Sykes lets them sit in the balcony where black people are required to sit in order to watch the trial. Even in the courtroom segregation takes place.
The prosecutor, Mr. Gilmer, questions Heck Tate, who recounts how, on the night of November 21, Bob Ewell urged him to go to the Ewell house and told him that his daughter Mayella had been raped. When Tate got there, he found Mayella bruised and beaten, she told him that Tom Robinson had beaten her and took advantage her. Atticus cross-examines the witness, who admits that no doctor was summoned, and tells Atticus that Mayella's bruises were concentrated on the right side of her face.
Bob Ewell testifies that on that evening he was coming out of the woods with a load of kindling when he heard his daughter yelling. When he reached the house, he looked in the window and saw Tom Robinson raping her. Robinson fled, and Ewell went into the house, saw that his daughter was all right, and ran for the sheriff.
Ewell goes to leave before Atticus's cross-examination he can’t believe he is being questioned by the defence. Atticus asks him why a doctor was not called and points out that he is left handed so is more likely to leave bruises on the right side of a face. Atticus makes a fool of Bob Ewell and his ‘cocky’ testimony, pointing the finger of guilt at him with his very well thought out questioning technique.
Mayella takes the witness stand in Chapter Eighteen Atticus is compassionate towards her but just, as Tom’s life is at stake. She testifies that she asked Tom to “bust up this chiffarobe for me” and that when she went to fetch a nickel for his reward “and I turned around and ‘fore I knew it he was on me.” And that “He got me round the neck” and “He hit me agin an’ agin—”
Atticus then examines her testimony and asks why she didn't put up a better fight, why her screams didn't bring the other children running, and, most importantly, how Tom Robinson managed the crime of bruising the right side of her face even though his left hand is useless, torn apart by a cotton gin when he was a boy.
Atticus pleads with Mayella to admit that there was no rape, that her father beat her. She shouts at him and yells that the courtroom would have to be a bunch of cowards not to convict Tom Robinson; she then bursts into tears, refusing to answer any more questions.
Atticus calls only one witness—Tom Robinson. Tom testifies that he always passed the Ewell house on the way to work and that Mayella often asked him to do chores for her. On that evening, she asked him to come inside the house, for the first time, and fix a door. When he got inside, however, the door was fine. He noticed that the other children were gone. Mayella told him that she had saved her money and sent them all to buy ice cream. Then she asked him to lift a box down from a dresser. When Tom climbed up on a chair she grabbed his legs, scaring him so much that he jumped down. She then hugged him around the waist and asked him to kiss her. As she struggled, her father appeared at the window, calling Mayella a whore and threatening to kill her. Tom fled from the house in fear.
When asked by Atticus if he was scared Tom replied he was and when asked why he said, “If you were a nigger like me, you’d be scared, too.
Link Deas suddenly stands up in Chapter Nineteen just before Mr Gilmer is to question Tom Robinson and announces, “I just want the whole lot of you to know one thing right now. That boy’s worked for me eight years an’ I ain’t had a speck o’ trouble outa him. Not a speck.” This is another ‘baby step’ that views and opinions are being changed about racial prejudices. This is then directly opposed with the total lack of respect the prosecution gives the defendant. Tom is bullied by Mr Gilmer, calling him not by his name but by “boy!”
In Chapter Twenty Atticus gives his closing speech, he calls upon the jury to fulfil their sense of duty that ‘all men are created equal’. He shows compassion, humanity and justice, ironically asking them to find themselves guilty if they convict Tom. Atticus begs the jury to avoid the state's assumption that all black people are criminals and to deliver justice by freeing Tom Robinson.
The children are sent home by Atticus, they beg to be allowed to return, once they have eaten, to hear the final verdict. Atticus agrees, as he knows it is likely the jury would return before the children. The jury stays out for two hours and none of the jurors look at him when they convict him. This is because they feel guilty that they are convicting an innocent man just because of their colour, they fear if they do not convict Tom they will be looked down upon by the rest of the white community. Even though Tom Robinson has been found guilty all the Negroes in the courtroom stand for Atticus, as he leaves out of respect for his efforts.
Chapter Twenty-two starts with Jem spending the rest of the night in tears, complaining against the injustice of the verdict. The next day, Maycomb's black population delivers an avalanche of food to the Finch household. Jem complains that his illusions about Maycomb have been shattered: he thought that these people were the best in the world, but, having seen the trial, he doesn't think so anymore. Miss Maudie points out that there were people who tried to help, like Judge Taylor, who appointed Atticus to the case instead of the regular public defender. She adds that the jury's staying out so long represent a sign of progress in race relations.
Jem and Atticus discuss the justice of executing men for rape. The subject then turns to jury trials and to how all twelve men could have convicted Tom. Atticus tells Jem that in an Alabama court of law, a white man's word always beats a black man's, and that they were lucky to have the jury out so long. In fact, one man on the jury wanted to clear Tom, surprisingly, it was one of the Cunninghams.
During Aunt Alexandra’s missionary circle meeting at the Finch’s house, in Chapter Twenty-four, Atticus arrives and sadly reveals the tragic death of Tom Robinson; he explains he was shot seventeen times while trying to escape from the prison where he was being held. It was a deranged attempt at escape because he knows he will not be reprieved, despite Atticus’s earlier hope of an acquittal when they appeal against the charges.
