Fucked

27 September 2007

8:37 AM

Well, here's my first written assignment to be turned in for my Law, Politics, and Public Policy course. To be completely honest, this is the absolute worst essay I've ever written. I read as much as I could to try to gain some background before I started, but I really just couldn't generate any ideas. I'll be lucky to get a D- on this paper.

[I'll replace this line later with the prompt]

Vaniah Schwenoha
Professor Jeb Barnes
Law, Politics, and Public Policy
September 27, 2007
Critical Book Review Assignment

The Limit of the Law

Throughout our lecture and discussion sessions, we established that the law and courts are constrained by many factors, and that the promise of the law and courts is consequentially limited by these constraints. By taking these constraints into consideration, we can effectively analyze Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird and the reasons why producing social change is so difficult.

In the novel, the fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama is home to a strong prejudiced community where only a few good people treat blacks as equals and the rest of the population treat them like dirt. This racism plays a very significant role in the trial of Tom Robinson, a black man who is falsely accused by Bob Ewell of raping his oldest daughter. Though Mr. Robinson’s intentions were anything but corrupt, and though Atticus Finch’s presentation of evidence thoroughly disproved the possibility of Mr. Robinson’s guilt, the strong bias among Maycomb County inhabitants yielded his conviction simply because he was a black man, and in the Deep South, a white man’s word was always believed over a black man’s word.

The trial itself was greatly influenced by public opinion. Because the community was such a racist one and because a black man is never trusted as much as a white man, no matter how low-class that white man is, the court stood no chance of employing an ‘all men created equal’ point of view, especially with an all-white jury. This illustrates the limit of the law by cultural constraint because judicial power is hindered by strong local convictions.

Further limit is put on the law by doctrinal constraint. Because trial by jury is a constitutional provision, there was not much Tom Robinson could do to receive a fair judgment of the evidence because his jury of supposed peers was composed of white men. Atticus Finch was confident that he would be able to get an appeal after the initial trial, but when Mr. Robinson decided that he was “tired of white men’s chances and preferred to take his own,” (236) he gave up the possibility of having a more reasonable trial and sealed his own fate instead.

The trial did not trigger an immediate change in the community’s treatment of black people, but it did influence the views of a few citizens. Before the trial, Scout Finch’s aunt Alexandra displayed a strong distaste for blacks when she objected to allowing Scout to visit Calpurnia’s house (136). After the trial, however, Alexandra’s concern for Tom Robinson showed her less scathing view of blacks (235). This change in Alexandra’s views was minor, however. Even with her slight increase in sympathy for Mr. Robinson, she still obviously held social standards among classes, as shown when she lashes out against Scout when she talks about wanting to become better friends with her classmate Walter Cunningham (223)

The events surrounding the trial were too influential in some way to members of the community. The night before the trial, when a mob of men went down to the jailhouse to attack Tom Robinson, they were willing to go through Atticus Finch to do so. Scout’s confrontation with the mob, and particularly with Walter Cunningham, however, was enough to make the men think things over. After the trial, Atticus revealed to Scout and Jem that part of the reason the jury was in deliberation for so long was because a relative of Mr. Cunningham’s was on the jury, and Walter’s new respect for the Finch family led that jury member to sincerely consider the facts of the case, as opposed to immediately ruling in favor of the white man. In fact, Atticus Finch’s argument was so strong in this case that many of the jury members could not reach a verdict immediately. I suppose it may have been Atticus’ extensive experience in court, or his status as a repeat player, that resulted in his being named by Judge Taylor to defend Tom Robinson because Atticus was the only man who could keep a jury out so long in such a case (215-216), even if the final verdict was inevitably reached.

Still, some other Maycomb residents were untouched by the court’s attempt to provide equal justice. It seems that those less acquainted Atticus Finch held no sympathy for Tom Robinson’s decided fate or the unfair treatment of blacks in general, as portrayed at the end of the trial when the Finch family made its way through the cheerful crowd (212). Later, too, Scout discussed the hypocrisy of her teacher Ms. Gates, who she knew to be against Hitler, but who she also heard walk out of the courtroom saying, “it’s time somebody taught ‘em a lesson, they were getting’ way above themselves, an’ the next thing they think they can do is marry us” (247).

In the particular case against Tom Robinson, there was not much that could have been done to change the community’s moral tact. Perhaps if the plot had taken a different direction after the trial, Atticus may have been able to appeal and overrule the verdict reached in Judge Taylor’s court. Maybe then would a prominent social change have taken place in Maycomb County. The case would have suffered from less doctrinal and cultural constraint because the ‘referees’ in the logic of the triad (Barnes 9/4/07) would be more detached from the community of the alleged crime.

Reflecting upon it, however, an appeal could carry the possibility of clearing Tom Robinson’s name, but would it really have initiated a community-wide change in social class structure? Without the influence of other institutions, I think not. Similar to the case of Brown v. Board, institutional and cultural constraints would cause a need for congressional and executive intervention (Barnes 9/13/07) to produce a significant change in social norms.

Based on the examples above, we can conclude that the law itself cannot bear social reconstruction simply because it is too restricted. Rather, we must conclude that the law in conjunction with other political institutions stands a better chance of producing the desired result.