The Runaway Jury

Lou Dell hastily finished her business when he entered the room. He smiled and greeted her pleasantly, but she held a grudge from their earlier skirmishes. He poured coffee and opened a newspaper.

As Nicholas expected, Retired Colonel Frank Herrera arrived shortly after eight, almost a full hour before they were due, clutching two newspapers, one The Wall Street Journal. He wanted the room to himself, but managed a smile at Easter.

"Mornin’, Colonel," Nicholas said warmly. "You’re here early."

"So are you."

"Yeah, I couldn’t sleep. Found myself dreaming of nicotine and black lungs." Nicholas studied the sports page.

Herrera stirred his coffee and sat down across the table. "I smoked for ten years in the Army," he said, sitting stiffly, shoulders square, chin up, always ready to bolt to attention. "But I had the good sense to quit."

"Some people can’t, I guess. Like Jacob Wood."

The Colonel grunted with disgust, and opened a newspaper. For him, the kicking of a bad habit was nothing but a simple act of willpower. Get the head straight, and the body can do anything.

Nicholas turned a page, said, "Why’d you quit?"

"Because it’s bad for you. Doesn’t take a genius, you know. Cigarettes are deadly. Everybody knows that."

If Herrera had been so blunt on at least two of the pretrial questionnaires, he wouldn’t be sitting where he was now. Nicholas remembered the questions well. The fact that Herrera felt so strongly probably meant only one thing: He wanted to be on the jury. He was retired military, probably bored with golf, tired of his wife, looking for something to do, and obviously carrying a grudge about something.

"So you think cigarettes should be outlawed?" Nicholas asked. The question was one he’d posed to the mirror a thousand times, and he had all the right comebacks to all the possible answers.

Herrera slowly placed the newspaper on the table and took a long drink of black coffee. "No. I think people should have more sense than to smoke three packs a day for almost thirty years. What the hell do you expect? Perfect health?" His tone was sarcastic, and left no doubt that he’d walked into jury service with his mind made up.

"When did you become convinced of this?"

"Are you dense? It ain’t that hard to figure out."

"Maybe that’s your opinion. But you certainly should’ve expressed yourself during voir dire."

"What’s voir dire?"

"The jury selection process. We were asked questions covering these very matters. I don’t recall you saying a word."

"Never felt like it."

"You should have."

Herrera’s cheeks flushed red, but he hesitated for a second. This guy Easter after all knew the law, or at least knew more than the rest of them. Maybe he had done something wrong. Maybe there was a way Easter could report him and get him bumped from the jury. Maybe he would be held in contempt, sent to jail, or fined.

And then another thought hit him. They weren’t supposed to be discussing the case, right? So how could Easter report anything to the Judge? Seemed like Easter would risk getting in trouble himself if he went and repeated anything he heard in the jury room. Herrera relaxed a bit. "Lemme guess. You’re gonna push hard for a big verdict, lots of punitives and stuff like that."

"No, Mr. Herrera. Unlike you, I haven’t made up my mind. I think we’ve listened to three witnesses, all for the plaintiff, so there are many yet to come. I think I’ll wait until all the evidence is in, from both sides, then I’ll try to sort things out. I thought that’s what we promised to do."

"Yeah, well, me too. I can be persuaded, you know." He suddenly had an interest in the editorials. The door burst open, and Mr. Herman Grimes entered with his walking stick tapping away in front of him. Lou Dell and Mrs. Grimes followed. Nicholas, as usual, rose to prepare his foreman’s coffee, a ritual now.

FITCH STARED at his phones until nine. She’d mentioned a possible call today.

Not only did she play games, but evidently she was not above lying. He had no desire to be stared at again, so he locked his door and walked to the viewing room where two of his jury experts were sitting in the dark, staring at a crooked scene on the wall, waiting for the courtroom adjustment. Someone had kicked McAdoo’s briefcase, and the camera was off by ten feet. Jurors one, two, seven, and eight were out of the picture, and only half of Millie Dupree and Rikki Coleman behind her were visible.

The jury had been seated for two minutes, and so McAdoo was pinned to his seat and couldn’t use his cellphone. He didn’t know some bigfoot under the table had kicked the wrong briefcase. Fitch swore at the screen, then returned to his office where he scribbled a note. He gave it to a well-dressed errand boy, who dashed up the street, entered the courtroom like one of a hundred young associates or paralegals, and slipped the note to the defense table.

The camera inched to the left, and the full jury came into view. McAdoo pushed a bit too hard and cut off half of Jerry Fernandez and Angel Weese, juror number six. Fitch cursed again. He’d wait until the morning recess and get McAdoo on the phone.

DR. BRONSKY was rested and ready for another day of thoughtful discourse on the ravages of tobacco smoke. Having discussed the carcinogens in tobacco smoke, and the nicotine, he was ready to move to the next compounds of medical interest: irritants.

Rohr served up the fat pitches, Bronsky swung from the heels. Tobacco smoke contains a variety of compounds-ammonia, volatile acids, aldehydes, phenols, and ketones-and these have an irritant effect on the mucous membrane. Bronsky once again left the witness stand and walked to a fresh cutaway diagram of the upper torso and head of a human. This showed the jury the respiratory tract, the throat, the bronchial tubes, and the lungs. In this area of the body, tobacco smoke stimulates secretion of mucus. At the same time, it delays the removal of the mucus by retarding the action of the ciliated lining of the bronchial tubes.

Bronsky had been remarkably adept at keeping the medical jargon on a level reachable by the average layman, and he slowed a notch to explain what happens to the bronchial tubes when smoke is inhaled. Two other large, colorful diagrams were mounted in front of the bench, and Bronsky went to work with his pointer. He explained to the jury that the bronchial tubes are lined with a membrane equipped with fine, hairlike fibers called cilia, which move together in waves and control the movement of the mucus on the surface of the membrane. This movement of the cilia acts to free the lungs from virtually all the dust and germs that are inhaled.

Smoking, of course, wreaks havoc with this process. Once Bronsky and Rohr were as certain as they could be that the jurors understood how things were supposed to work, they quickly moved forward to explain just precisely how smoking irritated the filtering process and caused all sorts of damage in the respiratory system.

They went on about mucus and membranes and cilia.

The first visible yawn came from Jerry Fernandez in the back row. He’d spent his Monday night at one of the casinos watching the football game and drinking more than he’d planned. He smoked two packs a day, and he was well aware that the habit was unhealthy. Still, he needed one now.

More yawns followed, and at eleven-thirty, Judge Harkin sent them out for a badly needed two-hour lunch.

The stroll through downtown Biloxi had been Nicholas’ idea, one he’d put in a letter to the Judge on Monday. It seemed absurd to keep them confined to a small room all day with no hope of fresh air. It wasn’t as if their lives were in jeopardy, or that they’d be assailed by unknown conspirators if let loose on the sidewalks. Just simply put Madam Lou Dell and Willis the guard with another lethargic deputy, give them a route, say, six or eight city blocks, forbid the jurors from speaking to anyone, as usual, and, well, turn them loose for thirty minutes after lunch so the food could settle. It seemed like a harmless idea, and in fact upon further reflection Judge Harkin embraced it as his own.