I knew it he was on me. Just run up behind me, he did. He got me round the neck, cussin' me and sayin' dirt... He hit me agin an; agin."

During Atticus' cross examination, however, her story became less specific, and she recanted her earlier statement.

"No, I don't recollect if he hit me. I mean yes I do, he hit me... Yes, he hit--I just don't remember, I just don't remember... it all happened so quick."

She never describes the rape, only that Tom "done what he was after." She also nods when Atticus suggests that her father is not so "tollable... when he's drinking."

TOM ROBINSON. Tom, who has a crippled left arm, denies ever touching Mayella. He claims that he came inside the Ewell's house at Mayella's request, to fix a door and get a box off the top of the chiffarobe, and she suddenly kissed him and grabbed him around the waist while he stood on a chair. He immediately ran from the house out of fear, and as he did, Bob Ewell appeared at the window. "You goddam whore, I'll kill ya," Bob yelled at Mayella. Tom denied ever raping or harming Mayella in any way.

JUDGE TAYLOR. The judge had little to say, other than keeping order in the courtroom on several occasions. He made no summation or statement to the jury that was recorded by Scout (as narrator).

ATTICUS FINCH'S SUMMARY. Atticus's heartfelt summation requests the jury to overlook Tom's color and consider that Bob may have initiated Mayella's beating. He asks the jury to do its duty and, " ' In the name of God, believe him (Tom). ' "

When Heck Tate takes the stand, he testifies that, as he left his office on November 21st, Bob Ewell stopped him and claimed that a Negro had raped his daughter, Mayella. Tate gets in Bob's car and the pair drive to the Ewell home. Once they arrived, Tate observes that Mayella has been beaten up. Tate asks the young woman who is responsible and she replies, "Tom Robinson." Tate leaves, finds Tom, brings him to the Ewell home and Mayella identifies him as the culprit. In addition to these details, Tate also testifies to Mayella's emerging black eye and the bruising around her arms and neck. 

Bob Ewell testifies and acknowleges that he is Mayella's father. He says that as he was returning from the woods around dusk, and arrived at the gates of his home and heard his daughter screaming. He ran to the window and saw Tom raping Mayella. He said that there appeared to have been a struggle in the home, as things were strewn about. As soon as he assessed the situation, he says he went straight to Mr. Tate to report the crimes. Ewell concurs with Tate about the locations of the bruises on Mayella's body. 

Mayella Ewell tells the court that on the night in question, November 21st, she was sitting on her porch at dusk, not doing anything but contemplating the task she was to complete, chopping up an old chiffarobe. She says she saw Tom walking by and asked him to do it instead, offering him a nickle to do so. She claims that as she went inside to get the money, Tom followed her in and it was then that he attacked her. When pressed, Mayella cannot remember if Tom had hit her in the face. 

Tom Robinson's testimony contradicts all three of the whites who are charging him. Although he agrees that he came into the gate, and Mayella had asked him inside, it was she who kissed him. Tom says he was very frightened and knocked over a chair; he tried to get out of the door but Mayella blocked him. He completely denies striking Mayella in any way. 

The similarities are in Tate and Ewell's stories. Mayella "cannot remember" if Tom had hit her, so her story begins to veer off. Moreover, during her testimony, it is revealed that Tom's left arm is considerably shorter than his right, making the locations of her bruising by his left hand impossible. Tom's story, of course, is the mirror opposite of all those who oppose him, for ONLY he is telling the truth. 

Tom makes one "mistake" in his trial. He claims he went to assist Mayella because he "felt sorry for her." 

Yes, suh. I felt right sorry for her, she seemed to try more'n the rest of 'em-" 

In the segregated, racist South, for a black man to "feel sorry" for a white woman was unthinkable. It suggested that he, a Negro, felt superior in even a small way to a white person, thus evoking Mr. Gilmar's incredulous response:

"You felt sorry for her, you felt sorry for her?

It was a "crime" that even facts would not overcome. 

In Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, Tom Robinson, a black man, is accused of raping and attacking Mayella Ewell, a poor white woman and the daughter of the town drunk, Bob Ewell. The violent nature of this case causes quite a sensation in Maycomb, and the entire town shows up to the courthouse at the beginning of the trial to watch its proceedings.

Atticus Finch, who has been appointed by Judge Taylor as Tom's attorney, calls Bob to the stand as the second witness in the trial. Atticus asks Bob if he is able to write, and Bob confidently tells Atticus that he is, as that is how he signs his "relief checks." Bob writes down his name in front of the court, which demonstrates one huge discovery: he is left-handed.

Due to the fact that Mayella's injuries were all on the right side of her face, one could deduce that a left-handed man had to have attacked her. It is soon thereafter revealed that Tom has a mangled left arm due to a childhood accident; he could not possibly have been the one to attack Mayella. Simply put, the girl is lying.

The second witness in the court scene was Bob Ewell. It was his testemony that proved he was left handed and proved Tom Robinson innocent because Tom's left hand was mangled and crippled.

Atticus Finch purposely called Bob Ewell to the stand because he wanted to show before the entire court that he signed his name with his left hand.

Sheriff of Maycomb County Heck Tate is the first witness to testify in the trial of Tom Robinson, the African American man accused of raping a white woman--an extremely serious charge in the American South during the period in which To Kill a Mockingbird is set. The reader is first introduced to Heck Tate in Chapter 10, when he arrives at the Finch family's neighborhood to enlist Atticus's help in shooting a rabid dog. It becomes clear in this introduction to Sheriff Tate that he is a decent human being, but the full measure of his integrity as a law enforcement official and as a human is only revealed in later chapters, as when in Chapter 15, the sheriff visits Atticus at the latter's home to discuss the possibility of moving Tom Robinson to a safer location until the trial and. Heck Tate is shown to be a good person again when the lynch mob that Atticus confronts in front of the jail informs the lawyer that he, Atticus, should not hope for the sheriff's assistance in defending Tom Robinson from the mob, as the lawman was diverted from the scene by a fraudulent call. (The implication is that Heck Tate would indeed have come to Atticus's aid if he could have.)

With Heck Tate's character established, the reader can assume that his testimony before the jury in Tom's rape trial will be impartial and professional, and it is both. As Chapter 17 begins, Sheriff Tate has taken the witness stand. His testimony is straightforward and he sticks to the facts as he knows or understands them, which is inadequate given that the key accusation is made by the "victim's" father, Bob Ewell. In any event, it is the sheriff's testimony that allows for Atticus to establish that Tom, whose left arm, as described by Scout, "was fully twelve inches shorter than his right, and hung dead at his side. . .[and] ended in a small shriveled hand," is physically incapable of inflicting the wounds Mayella Ewell received. The direction of those wounds could not, Atticus points out, have been inflicted by a man without a functioning left arm.

Tom Robinson by far gives the most convincing testimony in the To Kill A Mockingbird trial. This is both because he is telling the truth and because he comes across as a sincere and compassionate human being.

Under questioning from Atticus, Robinson's credibility in denying the rape is greatly strengthened when it comes out that he has a withered and useless left arm, meaning the assault could not have occurred the way Mayella and her father described it:

His left arm was fully twelve inches shorter than his right, and hung dead at his side. It ended in a small shriveled hand, and from as far away as the balcony I could see that it was no use to him.

Tom is open and honest under cross-examination by Mr. Gilmer, the prosecuting attorney, admitting, for example, that when he went to jail for a fight, it was he who was beaten. He isn't trying to make himself look good. Further, while it doesn't go well with the jury for a black to show pity for a white, Robinson honestly says he felt sorry for Mayella and that was why he helped her. It is hard not to feel the earnestness of his words.

Lee handles a tough problem well by making Robinson the most credible witness. For the racism to be highlighted, there has to be no doubt about Tom's innocence. At the same time, to be believable and sympathetic, Tom needs to seem like a real person. Lee manages to make him an honorable but flawed person (for example, getting into the fight) while also making it entirely clear that his conviction was wrongful and based on his race.

The text shows us that Tom Robinson’s testimony was very strong. First of all, Tom is nervous about telling his side of the story because it is not consistent with the testimony of both Bob and Mayella Ewell. However, he is willing to do so, and this is convincing proof that what he is saying is true. He shuts his eyes when he says the answer to one of Atticus’ questions, as though he wishes it didn’t happen the way he has to describe it. Overall, he uses a calm tone and has a focused demeanor.

Tellingly, Scout believes his testimony, as demonstrated by this quote, “Atticus sometimes said that one way to tell whether a witness was lying or telling the truth was to listen rather than watch: I applied his test—Tom denied it three times in one breath, but quietly, with no hint of whining in his voice, and I found myself believing him in spite of his protesting too much.” This is in contrast to how Scout perceives Mayella’s testimony. “Apparently Mayella’s recital had given her confidence, but it was not her father’s brash kind: there was something stealthy about hers, like a steady-eyed cat with a twitchy tail.” Scout finds her testimony sneaky.

Finally, we can infer that the jury also believed Tom. If they had not, they would have come back with their verdict much faster. The trouble for the jury was that they did believe Tom, and that kept them deliberating for a long time. But the social mores of the time and their lack of moral courage kept them from acting on their belief.

Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. HarperCollins, 2002.

Two of the witnesses mentioned--Mayella and Tom--offered riveting testimony during the trial. Mayella's appearance was a dramatic one, and she eventually stormed off the stand screaming at Atticus and the jurors.

"...if you fine fancy gentleman don't wanna do anything about it then you're all yellow stinkin' cowards, stinkin' cowards, the lot of you."

Of course, little of Mayella's testimony was spoken truthfully, and she contradicted herself several times.

   "No, I don't recollect if he hit me. I mean, yes I do, he hit me."
   "Was your last sentence your answer?"
   "Huh? Yes, he hit... I just don't remember, I just don't remember..."

If you are asking whose testimony was the most honest and compelling, the answer would have to be Tom. Although the reader is never told specifically what happened between Mayella and Tom, we are allowed to judge for ourselves from the testimony given, and Tom's version seems the most likely. He is portrayed as honest, humble and fearful of the position he is in. Atticus' point that Tom's injured hand was incapable of choking or hitting Mayella seems inarguable. Perhaps Tom's fear is expressed best when he explains to Atticus why he ran from the Ewell house.

"...if you was a nigger like me, you'd be scared, too."

In Chapter 17 of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, Tom Robinson’s trial begins and the first witness called upon to testify is Sheriff Heck Tate.

While being questioned by the prosecutor, Heck tells the jury that he was leaving work at night on November 21st when Bob Ewell showed up at the police station and reported that his daughter, Mayella Ewell, was raped by a Black man. Heck recalls accompanying Bob to the Ewell home and seeing Mayella lying on the floor, badly beaten. The sheriff claims he asked Mayella who raped and beat her, and she named Tom Robinson as her attacker. He then brought Tom Robinson to the Ewell home and asked Mayella to identify him as her attacker in person, which she did.

While being questioned by Atticus, the sheriff admits that neither he nor anyone else called a doctor to examine Mayella. He says she was badly beaten, but he cannot say for sure which of her eyes had been bruised. He then describes her injuries, including finger marks on her throat, before leaving the witness stand.