To begin with,
this case should never have come to trial.
The State has not produced one iota...
of medical evidence...
that the crime Tom Robinson is charged with...
ever took place.
lt has relied, instead,
upon the testimony of two witnesses...
whose evidence has not only been called into serious question...
on cross-examination,
but has been flatly contradicted by the defendant.
There is circumstantial evidence to indicate that...
Mayella Ewell was beaten savagely...
by someone who led, almost exclusively, with his left.
Tom Robinson now sits before you having taken the oath...
with the only good hand he possesses,
his right.
l have nothing but pity in my heart...
for the chief witness for the State.
She is the victim of cruel poverty and ignorance.
But my pity...
does not extend so far...
as to her putting a man's life at stake,
which she has done in an effort to get rid of her own guilt.
Now l say ''guilt,'' gentlemen,
because it was guilt that motivated her.
She's committed no crime.
She has merely broken a rigid and time-honored...
code of our society--
a code so severe that whoever breaks it is hounded from our midst...
as unfit to live with.
She must destroy the evidence...
of her offense.
But what was the evidence of her offense ?
Tom Robinson, a human being.
She must put Tom Robinson away from her.
Tom Robinson was to her a daily reminder...
of what she did.
Now, what did she do ?
She tempted a Negro.