The Runaway Jury

So, both sides were cautiously pleased with their jury. No radicals had been seated. No bad attitudes had been detected. All twelve had high school diplomas, two had college degrees, and another three had accumulated credits. Easter’s written answers admitted completion of high school, but his college studies were still a mystery.

And as both sides prepared for the first full day of real trial activities, they quietly pondered the great question, the one they loved to guess about. As they looked at the seating charts and studied the faces for the millionth time, they asked over and over, "Who will be the leader?"

Every jury has a leader, and that’s where you find your verdict. Will he emerge quickly? Or will she lie back and take charge during deliberations? Not even the jurors knew at this point.

AT TEN SHARP, Judge Harkin studied the packed courtroom and decided everyone was in place. He pecked his gavel lightly and the whispers ceased. Everyone was ready. He nodded at Pete, his ancient bailiff in a faded brown uniform, and said simply, "Bring in the jury." All eyes watched the door beside the jury box. Lou Dell appeared first, leading her flock like a mother hen, then the chosen twelve filed in and went to their assigned seats. The three alternates took their positions in folding chairs. After a moment of settling in-adjusting seat cushions and hem lengths and placing purses and paperbacks on the floor-the jurors grew still and of course noticed that they were being gawked at.

"Good morning," His Honor said with a loud voice and a large smile. Most of them nodded back.

"I trust you’ve found the jury room and gotten yourselves organized." A pause, as he lifted for some reason the fifteen signed forms Lou Dell had dispensed then collected. "Do we have a foreman?" he asked. The twelve nodded in unison. "Good. Who is it?"

"It’s me, Your Honor," Herman Grimes said from the first row, and for a quick second the defense, all its lawyers and jury consultants and corporate representatives, suffered a collective chest pain. Then they breathed, slowly, but never allowing the slightest indication that they had anything but the greatest love and affection for the blind juror who was now the foreman. Perhaps the other eleven just felt sorry for the old boy.

"Very well," His Honor said, relieved that his jury was able to reach this routine selection without apparent acrimony. He’d seen much worse. One jury, half white and half black, had been unable to elect a foreman. They later brawled over the lunch menu.

"I trust you’ve read my written instructions," he continued, then launched into a detailed lecture in which he repeated twice everything he’d already put in print.

Nicholas Easter sat on the front row, second seat from the left. He froze his face into a mask of noncommitment, and as Harkin droned on he began to take in the rest of the players. With little movement of the head, he cut his eyes around the courtroom. The lawyers, packed around their tables like vultures ready to pounce on roadkill, were, without exception, staring unabashedly at the jurors. Surely they’d tire of this, and soon.

On the second row behind the defense sat Rankin Fitch, his fat face and sinister goatee looking straight into the shoulders of the man in front of him. He was trying to ignore Harkin’s admonitions and pretending to be wholly unconcerned about the jury, but Nicholas knew better. Fitch missed nothing.

Fourteen months earlier, Nicholas had seen him in the Cimmino courtroom in Allentown, Pennsylvania, looking then much the same as he looked now-thick and shadowy. And he’d seen him on the sidewalk outside the courthouse in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, during the Glavine trial. Two sightings of Fitch were enough. Nicholas knew that Fitch now knew that he’d never attended college at North Texas State. He knew Fitch was more concerned about him than about any of the other jurors, and with very good reason.

Behind Fitch were two rows of suits, sharply dressed clones with scowling faces, and Nicholas knew these to be the worried boys from Wall Street. According to the morning paper, the market had chosen not to react to the jury’s composition. Pynex was holding steady at eighty bucks a share. He couldn’t help but smile. If he suddenly jumped to his feet and shouted, "I think the plaintiff should get millions!" the suits would bolt for the door and Pynex would drop ten points by lunch.

The other three-Trellco, Smith Greer, and Con-Pack-were also trading evenly.

On the front rows were little pockets of distressed souls who Nicholas was certain had to be the jury experts. Now that the selecting was done, they moved to the next phase-the watching. It fell to their miserable lot to hear every word of every witness and predict how the jury absorbed the testimony. The strategy was that if a particular witness made a feeble or even damaging impression on the jury, then he or she could be yanked off the stand and sent home. Perhaps another, stronger witness could then be used to repair the damage. Nicholas wasn’t sure about this. He’d read a lot about jury consultants, even attended a seminar in St. Louis where trial lawyers told war stories about big verdicts, but he still wasn’t convinced these "cutting edge" experts were little more than con artists.

They claimed to evaluate jurors just by watching their bodily reactions, however slight, to what was said. Nicholas managed another smile. What if he stuck his finger up his nose and left it there for five minutes? How would that little expression of body language be interpreted?

He couldn’t classify the rest of the spectators. No doubt there were a number of reporters, and the usual collection of bored local lawyers and other courthouse regulars. The wife of Herman Grimes sat midway back, beaming with pride in the fact that her husband had been elected to such a lofty position. Judge Harkin stopped his rambling and pointed at Wendall Rohr, who stood slowly, buttoned his plaid jacket while flashing his false teeth at the jurors, and strode importantly to the lectern. This was his opening statement, he explained, and in it he would outline his case for the jury. The courtroom was very quiet.

They would prove that cigarettes cause lung cancer, and, more precisely, that the deceased, Mr. Jacob Wood, a fine fellow, developed lung cancer after smoking Bristols for almost thirty years. The cigarettes killed him, Rohr announced solemnly; tugging at a pointed patch of gray beard below his chin. His voice was raspy but precise, capable of floating up and down to hit the right dramatic pitch. Rohr was a performer, a seasoned actor whose crooked bow tie and clicking dentures and mismatched clothing were designed to endear him to the average man. He wasn’t perfect. Let the defense lawyers, in their impeccable dark suits and rich silk ties, talk down their long noses at these jurors. But not Rohr. These were his people.

But how would they prove cigarettes cause lung cancer? There’d be lots of proof, really. First, they would bring in some of the most distinguished cancer experts and researchers in the country. Yes, that’s right, these great men were on their way to Biloxi to sit and chat with this jury and explain unequivocally and with mountains of statistics that cigarettes do in fact cause cancer.

Then, and Rohr couldn’t suppress a wicked smile as he prepared to reveal this, the plaintiff would present to the jury people who’d once worked for the tobacco industry. Dirty laundry would be aired, right there in that very courtroom. Damning evidence was on the way.

In short, the plaintiff would prove cigarette smoke, because it contains natural carcinogens, and pesticides, and radioactive particles, and asbestos-like fibers, causes lung cancer.

At this point, there was little doubt in the courtroom that Wendall Rohr could not only prove this, but would be able to prove it without much trouble. He paused, tugged at the ends of his bow tie with all ten chubby fingers, and glanced at his notes, then, very solemnly, began talking about Jacob Wood, the deceased. Beloved father and family man, hard worker, devout Catholic, member of the church softball team, veteran. Started smoking when he was just a kid who, like everyone else back then, was not aware of the dangers. A grandfather. And so on.