Ladies and gentlemen of the court, I have been charged with investigating, and bringing to the attention of the court the entire background and character of T.J. Avery from an impartial point of view. These are my findings. T.J. Avery comes from a sharecropping family which live and work on Mr. Gangers land; they are poor and lack financial independence. T.J.’s father is a weak old man and in consequence lacks the physical strength to punish him, for anything he does wrong.
T.J. has almost no principles, so he has no problem with getting others in trouble when he was the one who was the cause of it. One incident was when T.J. had gone up to the Wallace store, and his younger brother Claude had followed, when he was seen up there by Misses Logan she told his mother that he was there, but when T.J.’s mother questioned him about it she just said that he had gone up there to get Claude, who he said was sneaking up there to get free candy, Claude was beaten, he didn’t tell his mother that it wasn’t him.
He shows these attributes again at the end of the school term, during exam time, T.J. had written some cheat notes, and when the teacher who happened to be Misses Logan, he gave them to Stacey Logan who is his friend, but before Stacey could hand them back, his mother saw that and interrogated him about it and then proceeded to punish him in front of the entire class. Prior to this T.J. had been caught rummaging threw Misses Logan’s books at her desk looking for the test, after sneaking into her room, while visiting the Logan household as a friend of the Logan children.
T.J. is befriended by R.W. and Melvin Simms, who buy him alcohol at The Wallace Store. T.J. is proud of this friend ship with the two white boys, but T.J. is disgusted that Grand Mother Logan wanted to see Mr Wade W. Jamison, who is an attorney at Law. This is while he was visiting the town of Strawberry with Grand Mother Logan and the Logan children. Also while in strawberry Stacey Logan is foolishly persuaded by T.J. to go into the white mans store, which is other wise know as The Barnett Mercantile, while in the mercantile T.J. is mesmerised by the peal-handled pistol.
Later that month Stacey Logan is given I new coat form his Uncle, Hammer Logan, T.J. mocks him and his coat, saying that he looked like a fat preacher because the coat was a bit big on him at the time, later T.J. cons Stacy into ‘lending’ him the coat until Stacey grows into it, when Stacey realizes his foolishness and asks for the coat to be returned, Hammer Logan tell T.J. to keep the coat, T.J. does not even try to give it back, he just simply takes it, he has a very small conscience if any.
At the end of the last school year, T.J. was caught cheating in his exam and consequently fails, he knows that if Misses Logan had not caught him he would of past, but he is full of resentment and anger so he engineers the dismissal of Mary Logan, he then takes his revenge on her. He mentions that Misses Logan is not sticking to the curriculum, this is followed by a visit to her class by a school board official, Kaleb Wallace and Mr. Ganger, who is the head of the school board, Misses Logan is then immediately dismissed. When the Logan children discover that T.J. is behind her dismissal he is completely rejected by all of the other children.
T.J. after all his pretence about hating whites has used them to satisfy his own selfish motives. T.J. came to the revival festival with the Simms’s, he is dressed in a fine suit which he say the Simms’s bought him, and tries to show off, but is doesn’t work, and the gathering ignore him. The Simms’s call T.J. too their car but he hesitates for a moment as if unsure if to go or not to go, he decides to go with them and nothing more is known. About what happened to him after he left the revival meeting. I hope that this will assist the judge and jury in making this difficult decision.Ladies and gentlemen of the court
