Tom Robinson's "Justice"

Sorkin's To Kill A Mockingbird

Last week, my daughter and I went to the Buell Theater in downtown Denver to see Aaron Sorkin’s version of To Kill A Mockingbird. She’d gotten me tickets for my birthday back in November so it seemed right to take her along.

The play starred Richard Thomas (JohnBoy in The Waltons) as Atticus Finch. Thomas is somewhat shorter than Gregory Peck or Jeff Daniels, who originated the role on Broadway. That wasn’t a problem because Sorkin wrote the show with a somewhat smaller version of Atticus than we know from the movie. Oh, and the crotchety racist old lady, Mrs. DuBose, was played by Mary Badham who was Scout in the original movie (when she was 10).

The three children¹ — Scout, Jem, and Dill — shared the narration. Sorkin plays around with the chronology. The first line is “Bob Ewell fell on his knife.”² The scene then jumps to the courtroom and alternates with the Finch home for most of the show.

The central courtroom story is about Tom Robinson, a black man accused of the assault and rape of May Ella Ewell, a young white woman from a very racist family. Tom is summarily arrested and held. The local judge asks Atticus (who wasn’t a criminal lawyer) to take on his defense. Atticus persuades Tom to reject the plea offer from the district attorney (plead guilty and serve 18 months in jail).³ Atticus gets Tom to plead not guilty and go forward with a jury trial, even though the jury is 12 white men. Atticus provides testimony that Tom was physically incapable of striking May Ella. He couldn’t raise his left arm so couldn’t have beaten the right side of May Ella’s face. The jury quickly convicts Tom and he is sent to prison where he is killed by guards arguing that he was trying to escape by climbing a fence (also physically impossible).

The rest of the story revolves around the family, Bob Ewell (May Ella’s father), and the mysterious Boo Radley.⁴ In the climax, Bob Ewell attacks the children and breaks Jem’s arm. And Ewell falls on the aforementioned knife.

In the couple of days after seeing the play, I was pondering how Sorkin retold the story I knew so well from the movie (one of my favorites). How he softened Atticus, made the trial central, highlighted the issues of poverty and generational violence, and illustrated the deep character of the three children.

But in the days since the release of the Tyre Nichols videos, I can see how Sorkin’s version of the story highlight the role of racism; both individual and structural. At the individual level, there are the sentiments of Bob and May Ella Ewell as well as a passing comment from Mrs. DuBose. The language used is vile and supremacist. Reports are that Sorkin drew that language directly from Breitbart comments.

Tom Robinson was not victimized by the language of the Ewells. He had certainly heard similar sentiments expressed by many residents of small town Alabama in the 1930s. He “knew his place”. That’s why it was such a cardinal sin for him to say that he “felt sorry” for the Ewells. That would presume that he was better than them, which was never allowed.

Tom was a victim of a structural racism — the kind Ron DeSantis doesn’t want you to talk about. He was arrested simply on the word of the accuser without any critical response from the Sheriff. He was presumed guilty (and worthy of lynching) by the townspeople. He was hounded by the District Attorney who knew that the jury would convict a black man regardless of the evidence. And he was killed by prison guards looking for any reason to do so.

The structural dynamic present in the play is that by availing himself of a jury trial, Tom Robinson allowed himself to be a victim of those legal forces. It’s sad, but if he had pled guilty to a crime he didn’t commit, he would be back with his family in a year and a half. By doing what was “right”, he suffered.

Atticus, though “an honorable man”⁵, suffered from an idealism around these issues. Several times in the play he says that one should get into another man’s skin and walk around for awhile. But he couldn’t get into Bob Ewell’s skin nor that of the 12 jurors.

I’d love to think that the events of To Kill A Mockingbird are from some earlier time and place. I wish we could congratulate ourselves that we no longer think such things. It would be great to imagine that “Justice is Blind” and that court decisions would be based on the facts and not issues like race and class. It would be wonderful if a well-intentioned attorney of deep moral conviction could sway people predisposed to find accused “criminals” guilty.

But that would make me as idealistic as Atticus Finch. As much as people want to throw around their out-of-context “content of their character” MLK quote, they don’t believe it. And Sorkin’s play, particularly when seen through the lens of recent events like the Tyre Nichols killing, makes that point very well.

1. They were played by adults who did a fabulous job of conveying childlike behaviors and movements. The only clue that they weren’t kids is that Jem was the same height as Atticus.

2. If you don’t know the story, what’s the matter with you? Anyway, this line comes from the very end of the story.

3. I think this is clearly a Sorkin addition, but it’s important.

4. Fun trivia point: In the movie, Boo is played by Robert Duvall in his very first screen role.

5. One of my favorite scenes in the movie occurs after the guilty verdict is handed down. The Black community is in the balcony (as are the children). As Atticus leaves, they all stand and Calpurnia tells Scout to get up because “there goes an honorable man”. Breaks me up every time.