Mockingbirds first appear when Jem and Scout are learning how to use their shiny new air rifles. Atticus won’t teach them how to shoot, but he does give them one rule to follow.
Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird."
And later Miss Maudie says
"Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy.”
So, mockingbirds are harmless, innocent creatures, and killing them is wrong, because they don’t hurt anyone. We can extrapolate from this that the mockingbird and Tom Robinson are in the same class of beings.
Like killing a mockingbird, arresting Boo Radley would serve no useful purpose, and would hurt someone who never meant anyone any harm. So over the course of the novel, killing mockingbirds is associated with the sinful, the pointless, and the cruel.
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