Grisham's Juror Read online

  When we broke for lunch, I wandered the courthouse hallways, eating a sandwich and doing the math. At worst, if I was figuring this right, a fifteen percent chance of spending the week with Sloan and Lawson, attorneys at law, an eighty-five percent chance I’m eyeing bikinis while finishing my Grisham on the beach tomorrow, with my jury obligation satisfied.

  After lunch, Mr. Lawson started again with the same question about a big mistake. One guy said he’d purchased a used car and the transmission blew. The next guy had even less imagination.

  -Yeah, same thing, bought me an old Isuzu, never shoulda did that.

  The website said trial lawyers try to identify leaders and followers in the jury pool. What they want is a jury filled with followers and a leader or two sympathetic to their side. Mostly I was seeing followers. A short Hispanic woman who regretted dropping out of high school with her friends. Follower. But now she was working on her GED to set a better example for her two kids. Leader? Maybe at home, not on a jury, no way. A young white woman who teaches yoga. Leader? Says she makes mistakes all the time, doesn’t believe in regret, tries to live in the moment. Not real inspiring, lady. So who was going to lead this bunch? Anyone with even a hint of initiative—roof man, black MBA—was already on the freeway going home.

  Mr Sloan wanted to know more about the yoga instructor, who sat in chair ten.

  -Do you have an open mind about this case?

  -I believe so.

  Duh.

  -Would you be able to find someone guilty, even if it meant sending him to prison for the rest of his life?

  -I think so. I mean, if he’s guilty and everything.

  -Did you grow up in Orange County?

  -No, I’m from back east. Baltimore.

  -Oh. What brought you to California?

  -I needed, you know, a change. The yoga scene is better here.

  -Have you ever been the victim of a crime?

  -No, not that I…yeah, our house got robbed once, when I was little, but it was just some kids, nothing serious.

  -Do you believe a person has the right to take the law into her own hands?

  -You know, I was thinking about that when you asked it before, and I think maybe there are things we could solve ourselves. I don’t mean like hurting someone, but you know maybe talking to them, telling them what they…what you think they did wrong.

  -Okay. But what if they won’t listen to you?

  -I still think you should try.

  Mr. Sloan smiled and thanked her. Would he want her on his jury? The Sophist to my left didn’t think so.

  -She’s outta here.

  -A white woman?

  -A crazy white woman.

  -He needs to save his challenges.

  -He gets ten.

  -Isn’t it six?

  -Criminal trials it’s ten.

  -You sure?

  He was sure. And if he’s right, I’m up to—I did the math: oh, shit—a forty percent of getting picked. Calm down. Even if I get called into the box, there’s still Plan B, there’s still stubbornness, there’s still man, if the cops ain’t doing it. That’s it: I’m not staying without a fight.

  -It’s twenty.

  What? The Hypocrite on my right had joined the conversation, but kept her eyes on her book, even when I whispered in reply.

  -Ten each, right?

  -No, twenty.

  -Each?

  -If it’s for a life sentence.

  She still hadn’t looked up. Her nonchalance was troubling.

  -Is there a problem, sir?

  Judge Silverson! Her welcome-to-my office voice had become something sterner. Her stare honed in on me. The Sophist was suddenly busy checking his watch. The Hypocrite stayed deep in her paperback, not even a ripple on the pond. The Sophist and The Hypocrite—I was surrounded by Greeks, but I was in this alone, just me and the judge. Our eyes met, and she asked again.

  -Sir, is there a problem?

  I shook my head no. She held my glance a beat longer, a schoolmarm’s reprimand, then instructed Mr. Sloan to resume his examinations. The bailiff, though, a rather extreme looking man—very serious, very short, very bald—continued sizing me up.

  Is there a problem, sir? How many times have I used that tired line? What it means is I’m pretending to give you the benefit of the doubt, pretending that there might actually be a legitimate reason for you to be talking when you should be factoring equations or filling in bubbles on a standardized test, when we both know that if there was a legitimate reason for your conversation then you wouldn’t be whispering while pretending not to be, only this way you can save face, and I can appear respectful, and we can both avoid escalation. What it means is shut up.

  Actually, Your Honor, there is a problem. If The Hypocrite is correct, if each side gets to disqualify twenty, then I’m still in play, we all are. It’s no longer about simple odds. If the attorneys don’t like what they see, together they have enough challenges to march each one of us prospective jurors into the box and pop the question. A big mistake, immediately regretted? Actually, I’m regretting that I just missed my second escape opportunity of the morning, so please, Your Honor, could we try it again? Is there a problem, sir? Yes, Your Honor, I’ve developed such a crush on Juror Number Four that I can hardly think straight, I need to be dismissed. Is there a problem, sir? Yes, Your Honor, I neglected to tell you that I’m army reserve and I’ve just been called up, a text message from Uncle Sam, they’ve located bin Laden and need all boots on the ground, boo-yah! Is there a problem, sir? Yes, Your Honor, I’m having a stroke.

  My pocket vibrated again: another text message. Wouldn’t it be weird if it really was from the government, like the Pentagon is wiretapping brains now? You have a random thought—joining the army might be cool—and two minutes later a text message says Be all u can be and a recruiter is knocking on your door. That would make a great Grisham: a small town lawyer takes on the government, only the government can read his mind, so he has to think fake thoughts to misdirect them, then he sneaks out of town and plots his strategy in a cave in the mountains where the brain-tappers can’t reach him. Can a person think fake thoughts? Could the small town lawyer drive down main street thinking he was going to his old aunt’s house for Sunday afternoon pie when really he was heading for the cave? Wouldn’t the brain-tappers know he was thinking about thinking fake thoughts? Probably too science fictiony for a Grisham.

  The bailiff seemed to have lost interest in me, so I risked a quick peek at my cell phone: Get on the jury!

  Huh?

  Marissa works as a masseuse—forgive me, massage therapist—at a fancy hotel in Laguna, and when she has a time slot with no customers—sorry, guests—there isn’t much to do except refold towels and send text messages to her few friends and her boyfriend—oops, guy she is seeing—so maybe she is just goofing around, but I don’t get the joke. Or is the exclamation point supposed to be a question mark? I doubt it. But why would she want me on a jury? Maybe because when she has an afternoon off, she’d rather hang out with that artist guy, not the math teacher. Artist might be too generous a term. She says he paints landscapes, and in Laguna that usually means sun-drenched cliffs dappled with flowers overlooking a stretch of sand and a pale blue sea, sold to tourists wanting a splash of ocean in their suburban living rooms. Interior decorator is more like it. I’m sure he has a beard.

  I typed Huh?, hit SEND, and waited for Marissa to reply.

  Meanwhile, on the other side of the bar, Mr. Sloan was still working his way through the new talent. The guy with the bad transmission was the second Juror Number Five, having moved into the dismissed MBA’s seat, and the difference was, well, night and day. Mr. Amiable replaced by Mr. Terse.

  -Juror Number Five, have you ever met the defendant?

  -No, sir.

  -Do you have any independent knowledge of this case?

  -No, sir.

  -Any opinion on his guilt or innocence?

  -No, sir.

  His no-sir’
s had that aggressive matter-of-factness you hear from ex-military who, faced with the chaos of civilian life, take refuge in their certitude, their lack of ambiguity. The other guy with a bad car tried the same pose, but couldn’t pull it off.

  -Juror Number One, have you ever met the defendant?

  -No, sir.

  -Any independent knowledge of this case?

  -No, sir. Uh, what do you mean by independent knowledge?

  -Had you heard anything about this case before you came into the courtroom this morning?

  -Oh. No.

  -Maybe you read about it in the newspaper?

  -Not really.

  -So you don’t have any opinion on his guilt or innocence?

  -I don’t know what he did, if that’s what you mean.

  In high profile cases, they sometimes have trouble filling a jury because most prospective jurors have already formed opinions about the accused, but that wasn’t our situation. I read the newspaper, and I’m pretty sure this case went unreported. A drug deal goes bad in a rough neighborhood, some poor fool gets shot in the head—that doesn’t even make the tv news any more, never mind the front page or even the local section. Rough neighborhoods don’t matter. A guy named Jack is arrested, accused of first degree murder—murder!—and, yawn, nobody cares, nobody even knows.

  I was beginning to think even the defense attorney didn’t care. In comparison to Mr. Sloan’s hurried efficiency, Mr. Lawson’s friendly questioning now seemed lackadaisical. When it came time for challenges, he didn’t even stand. He looked tired. Maybe the limp was real after all. Mr. Sloan employed four more peremptories, including one to dismiss the Hispanic GED mother. He was shaping a jury, he knew what he was looking for. Mr. Lawson disqualified only the bad car guy in chair one, an obvious move, and without much enthusiasm. Is Lawson bored? Ambivalent? Maybe he’s sure his adversary will knock out anyone unpredictable, so he lets him do it, lets Sloan use up challenges, saves his own for when he needs them most. Like rope-a-dope. The slow guy with the bad hip wins in the end. That would be brilliant. Or maybe Lawson knows he’s drawn the short straw, the losing card, knows once the damning evidence is presented the jury composition won’t matter much at all. That’s probably it. He’s thinking let’s just get this finished and go home. Or was it the other way around? A defense attorney excusing jurors left and right would appear desperate, and Lawson was sitting pretty with an ace up his sleeve. Hell, Sloan, you pick ‘em this time, my witnesses are unimpeachable, my defense is jury-proof. Or maybe Lawson was just the typical public defender you read about—overworked, underpaid, uninspired, incompetent. Brilliant or incompetent, it’s a fine line, right? If he was brilliant, he would have graduated top in his class and taken a big money job with a big money firm, like that character in my third Grisham. So, incompetent then. Maybe incompetently brilliant, like that genius mathematician who quit MIT and sought political asylum in France because he thought men in red ties were stalking him. Maybe crazy old Lawson has the perfect defense sketched out on his legal pads but won’t reveal it, not even to the jury, fearing assassination if his legal genius becomes known? Or maybe his legal pads are completely blank, he’s brilliantly incompetent, like Inspector Clouseau. Like he’s actually the courthouse janitor pressed into service when he discovered the real public defender passed out in the bathroom. Don’t worry, Jack, he’ll bumble his way to an acquittal.

  Or maybe I think too much. Marissa says so. Maybe that’s why she likes the plein air artiste, whatever his name is, sitting dumbly at his easel, daubing distant seagulls onto his tedious seascapes.

  Sloan and Lawson accepted Lady Yoga and Sir No-Sir, giving them seven total jurors. Judge Silverson asked the clerk to call five more numbers. Please, not 51. The clerk called 52. Whew, close call. The Sophist stood up. I hope they retain him—keep the black guy who predicted an all-white jury—how would he spin that? The clerk called 26, 18, 22. Sounded like a locker combination.

  Suddenly, I could feel it. It’s hard to describe, and I’m not psychic or anything, but sometimes when I’m concentrating intently, my mind will open up, my thinking will kind of relax, almost cease, and a physical sensation will emerge, at first just a hint, then growing stronger to where my thoughts and feelings reach perfect alignment, a unity, and then I just know. Only it’s stronger than knowing. It’s an awareness. Physiological certainty. I was now aware of what was happening, what was about to unfold. My number would be drawn.

  And…bingo! When the clerk called 51, I was already standing. Five minutes earlier I had been dreading this moment. Now it was here, and I felt relief—the battle finally joined, nothing left to do but fight. And I was ready, I had my strategy: the stubborn, biased, obnoxious jury candidate was on his feet and heading for chair number one. Ready or not, Loan and Slawson, bumblers at law, here I come.

  When Mr. Lawson, the brilliant or incompetent attorney or janitor limped or faux-limped toward me and repeated his perfunctory or crafty question, I finally got it. It wasn’t a question at all, it was a mantra. Each time he said mistake immediately regretted, he was telling us that his man hadn’t intended to kill, the gun just went off, an accident, regrettable, but not murder. It was a subliminal message aimed for a juror’s unsuspecting subconscious, planting seeds of doubt in fertile ground. I should have been a lawyer. I mean, was anyone else catching all this? Does Juror Number Eleven, for example, a gray-haired woman with bifocals, realize she’s being carefully cultivated? I doubt it, otherwise she would knock off the incessant smiling. She smiled at the attorneys when they questioned her, and positively beamed at me when I entered the jury box. What did the old bumper sticker say?—if you’re not worried, you don’t understand the situation. Something like that.

  -What about you, Juror One, ever make a big mistake?

  Mr. Lawson’s face wasn’t quite fat, more like round and fleshy, and, like most white people stuck indoors all day, his skin was closest to pink. He, too, was smiling—real or fake? or delusional?—as he waited for my big confession. But I wasn’t ceding a thing.

  -Sure, I suppose.

  -Can you give us an example—a big mistake you made?

  -I don’t know. I try to forget them.

  -I see. You’re a teacher, right?

  That was from the juror questionnaire: single, thirty-five, Dana Hills High School, no criminal record.

  -That’s right.

  He paused, encouraging me to provide details. Not a chance, Mr. Public Defender, you’re on your own.

  -What do you teach?

  -Math.

  -Oh, math. How are the students these days?

  -Fine. On vacation mostly.

  -Right, yes, summertime. Do your students have trouble with drug use?

  -No. They’re experts at it.

  Down in chair twelve, The Sophist laughed. Thank you, brother, I got a million of them. Judge Silverson wasn’t amused. I could feel her eyes on me, waiting for me to go too far. Mr. Lawson managed a patient smile, but didn’t relent.

  -Ever make mistakes with students? I don’t know, maybe yell at a kid and then wish’d you hadn’t?

  -Yeah, sure. It happens.

  -Ever yell at the wrong kid? Like you thought he cheated and turns out he didn’t.

  -Actually, I try not to yell.

  -Ever accuse the wrong kid of cheating?

  -Probably.

  -You don’t remember?

  Am I the one on trial here? Shouldn’t we be asking Jack over there about his big mistake? Lawson hadn’t shown this much interest in the other jurors. It was like my resistance had inspired him, and he was determined to break me. I didn’t give an inch.

  -Like I said, I try to forget.

  -Right. Now tell me, can you look at my client seated at that table and say right now that you think he’s innocent?

  -Yes. No. I mean, I don’t know.

  -You don’t know?

  Don’t blow it. Here’s your chance. Ándele.

  -I mean, when I see him sitting o
ver there, I….

  My phone vibrated in my pocket.

  -Yes?

  Mr. Lawson hovered over me, suddenly enthusiastic about his job. Blood rushed to my face. Focus, focus.

  -It’s like on tv, him sitting there, like the bad guy, and so I think something in my head assumes he’s guilty. I can’t help it.

  Attaboy! That ought to do the trick.

  -Thank you for your honesty. That’s actually a pretty normal thought. Do you think you could set that thought aside and carefully, objectively, weigh the evidence?

  -I’m not sure. I’ve never done this before.

  Mission accomplished. Enough reticence to suggest stubbornness. Hints of sarcasm without bringing down a scolding from the bench. Clear admission of bias. And Mr. Lawson moving on to Juror Number Two.

  Marissa’s new message was burning a hole in my pocket, but it was too risky to check my phone while Lawson was talking to my immediate neighbor, while the spotlight was still so close. I waited until Lawson made it down to The Sophist.

  -Juror Number Twelve, ever make a big mistake?

  -I went up the Eiffel Tower, I thought I had enough time, but I ended up missing my flight back to the States.

  -What were you doing in Paris?

  -I had a layover, flying back from Morocco.

  I leaned forward as if trying to get a better look at the globetrotting African American, propped my elbows on my knees, and read the new text message: Dude Angels game my place beers. That was Pete, not Marissa. If that was Marissa, I’d get down on my knees and beg her to marry me. I’d teach summer school for extra income. I’d give her the latest Grisham for Christmas. Her mother could move in with us. And bring her cats. But Marissa doesn’t like beer. She doesn’t even like sports. Sometimes I’m not sure she likes me.