Atticus Finch, Robinson's lawyer, does a beautiful job discrediting Bob and Mayella Ewell's testimonies on the witness stand. Bob is the first witness who says that he caught Tom raping his daughter, but there are two things a father would have done at that point in time. First, he would have noticed exactly what sores, bruises, or cuts were on Mayella, and then he would have called a doctor to check her out. Bob did...
Atticus Finch, Robinson's lawyer, does a beautiful job discrediting Bob and Mayella Ewell's testimonies on the witness stand. Bob is the first witness who says that he caught Tom raping his daughter, but there are two things a father would have done at that point in time. First, he would have noticed exactly what sores, bruises, or cuts were on Mayella, and then he would have called a doctor to check her out. Bob did neither of these two things, which calls into question the validity of the accusations. Atticus wears Bob down and commits him to certain "facts" of the case that could not have been inflicted on Mayella by a one-armed man. Bob says that the perpetrator's hand marks were all the way around his daughter's neck and that her right eye was bruised. To begin with, Tom could not have placed two hands around the girl's neck; and secondly, a right-armed man would have punched her right eye, not her left one. To prove that Mr. Ewell could have punched his daughter, Atticus had him sign his name in front of the whole courtroom. Without prompting him, Bob signs his name with his left hand. Scout understands what her father did by concluding the following:
"Atticus was trying to show, it seemed to me, that Mr. Ewell could have beaten up Mayella. That much I could follow. If her right eye was blacked and she was beaten mostly on the right side of the face, it would tend to show that a left-handed person did it" (178).
Then second thing that the prosecuting attorney did not have was any medical evidence that rape had actually occurred. Atticus argues as follows:
"The state has not produced one iota of medical evidence to the effect that the crime Tom Robinson is charged with ever took place. It has relied instead upon the testimony of two witnesses who 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 somebody in this courtroom is" (203).
The final thing that proves that Tom Robinson is not guilty is the fact that Mayella Ewell is the guilty one. She is guilty of crossing the line socially and to avoid being held responsible for her actions, she blames an innocent man. Atticus explains it with the following:
"She was white, and she tempted a Negro. She did something that in our society is unspeakable: she kissed a black man. Not an old Uncle, but a strong young Negro man. No code mattered to her before she broke it, but it came crashing down on her afterwards" (204).
A lot of the evidence to prove Tom guilty does not exist. The charges are there to protect Mayella from what really happened. Therefore, the lack of medical and forensic evidence proves Tom is innocent.
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