Judge John Taylor

Scout calls Judge Taylor “a sleepy old shark” (16.105), and the description suits him well: he may seem out of it most of the time, but disrupt his court in any way and he’s on it like a shark on fishmeat.

While he seems fairly even-handed in court, his personal views on the Robinson case come out in more subtle ways. He’s the one who appoints Atticus as Tom’s defense council even when the job should have gone to another, less experienced, man. Later, Atticus says that the judge looked at Ewell on the witness stand “as if he were a three-legged chicken or a square egg” and continues, “Don’t tell me judges don’t try to prejudice juries” (27.16). Despite these attempts to influence the outcome of the case, Judge Taylor is ultimately powerless to prevent the jury from finding Tom guilty on circumstantial evidence. Like Atticus, he works within the system, but it seems that ultimately he can’t overcome the ways in which the system itself is broken.