Chapter 20 Question: a) What distinction does Atticus make in his speech about the written and unwritten laws of Maycomb?

He discussed to the Court about how there are written laws in Maycomb that the Ewells break regularly, but there are also unwritten laws that exist in their community. Maycomb has a certain social code that its citizens are expected to live by. One of these is that there should not be any affection between a white woman and a black man. He makes this distinction, because although there may not have been a written rule against it, this was the broken "law" that mattered more than any other social code broken by the Ewells previously.