by C. J. Box
“I know you do,” said O’Connor, taking a seat behind his desk. “And you’re not alone by a long shot, but the ABA and even the ACLU have both agreed to take a wait-and-see approach with the pilot program. So that’s what we’re here for. To show it can work.”
“I understand this is the first live case?” asked Blick.
“Yes,” said O’Connor. “Other actual cases will begin soon in the other pilot courts, but we are the first, and you should know I intend to stay first. I won’t tolerate any delays. Jury selection starts day after tomorrow.”
“Day after tomorrow?” Cervantez threw his hands in the air. “Judge, that is way too soon. How can you expect us to be ready for voir dire in a day and a half ?”
“Relax, Larry,” said Blick. “You’ve had two months to prepare your case. And you know as well as I do this isn’t the one to go to the wall for.”
Cassandra sensed the assistant prosecutor was keen on the prospect of being at the forefront of a technological—and legal—revolution, which meant Forrest was likely to encounter far less contention from her than it appeared Cassandra was going to get from Cervantez.
“So my client gets to be the victim of us working out the bugs,” said Cervantez. “Terrific. How is that remotely fair?”
“Your client signed off on it, Mr. Cervantez,” said O’Connor. “She’s waived her right to procedural due process. Everything was explained to her.”
“She’s a khem addict, Your Honor. She’ll sign anything for a fix. I have to say for the record that this is an outrage. I’ve been a public defense attorney for over twenty years and I’ve never seen anything this grievous.”
“Mr. Cervantez, you can spare me the rhetoric. We’re not in the courtroom yet.”
“But Judge, how is this even constitutional?”
“Ah,” said O’Connor. “That is yet to be determined. But there’s certainly a legitimate path to constitutionality. The court recognized legal constructs as having the same rights as persons in Citizens United, and Greene v. Osbourne found sufficient digital data could be used to construct a personal value system and ascertain intent. The concept of a surrogate jury is just building on the evolving definition of person in a technological age. Welcome to the future, Mr. Cervantez. Kicking and screaming as you may choose.”
* * *
The Full Belly was two blocks from the Hall of Justice down Clinton Street. The judge had strongly encouraged Cassandra and Cervantez to have lunch together. Unmanned electric cars traveled the streets at uniform speeds and distance. Drones flew between the buildings as though through canyons, delivering packages, auditing pedestrian traffic, and carrying air boards advertising insurance or pharmaceuticals.
“You know where this all started?” asked Cervantez as he and Cassandra stopped at the corner of Clinton and Beaubien to wait for the LED-lit walkway across the street to turn from red to green.
Cassandra spread her hands in question.
“When they replaced umps behind the plate with those pitch monitors,” said Cervantez with disgust.
“They work,” said Cassandra. “No one argues balls and strikes anymore.”
“Exactly,” said Cervantez. “Took away all nuance. We keep wanting everything to be black and white, but everything isn’t black and white. Like the strike zone, there are edges. Humans understand edges are not clear-cut.”
“Which is why people make mistakes,” said Cassandra.
“Yep, they do,” said Cervantez. “But isn’t that what they say? To err is human. What if that ability is humanity’s defining asset? We’ve spent thousands of years trying to eradicate human error. What if when we finally stamp it out for good, poof! No more humanity.”
“That’s probably a ways off,” said Cassandra.
The walkway lit up green and they started to cross.
“Might be closer than you think,” said Cervantez.
The restaurant was crowded with other court employees. At the order counter, Cassandra swiped her hand over the UR? reader and the vegetarian options were displayed on the menu screen in the countertop.
“Hello, Cassandra,” said the menu. “What would you like for lunch?”
She ordered the grilled tempeh sandwich with avocado, roasted red peppers, and sprouts on ciabatta bread.
“Good choice, Cassandra,” said the menu. “Enjoy.”
Beside her, Cervantez ordered the BLT platter.
“This sandwich has 1,094 milligrams of sodium, Lawrence, which will exceed your personal recommended daily allowance,” said the menu. “Perhaps you would like to omit the bacon or make another choice?”
“It’s not a BLT without bacon,” said Cervantez. “And no, I do not want to make another choice.” He turned to Cassandra. “I hate it when it tries to tell me what to eat.”
“It’s just giving good advice,” said Cassandra. “Too much sodium’s not healthy for you.”
“So I’ve been told,” said Cervantez. “But it’s my call.”
“Your health insurance company may think otherwise,” said Cassandra.
“Yeah, yeah,” said Cervantez. “I know. So my insurance rate just ticked up. But a BLT is worth it.”
They found a table along a back wall. Cervantez bit into his sandwich. “Mmm,” he said. “Good bacon.” He wiped at his goatee with a napkin. “All right. I guess we’re doing this. So, jury consultant, tell me how the hell this works.”
“You have an aunt?” began Cassandra.
“I have many.”
“Well, pick one.”
“My tía Mayra. Salt of the earth.”
“Okay, picture your tía Mayra. Imagine all you know about her. Her likes, her dislikes. Her tendencies and quirks. Her experiences, her worldview. Technology now allows us to render all of those traits and qualities digitally.” Cassandra concentrated on keeping her voice clinical, despite her enthusiasm for the revolutionary work. “Over the past decade, building on personality tests such as the Enneagram model or the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, which we now recognize as primitive but at the time was highly influential, personality psychologists have developed a comprehensive—I’ll call it a questionnaire—that assembles an individual’s personality with such accuracy that we can extrapolate decisions and judgments the person would make in real-life situations.”
“Uh-huh,” said Cervantez. “My tía Mayra in a computer.”
“Essentially, yes,” said Cassandra, having forgotten her food. “Personality neuroscience has mapped the six major personality traits to regions of the brain. That’s the foundation. Through a simple MRI we can identify the building blocks of an individual’s personality.”
Over the next half hour, Cassandra explained how through using intensive Likert-scale surveys, personality mapping, and inclusive mining of personal data from e-life platforms, Real Thought Analytics had developed the Surrogate program.
“As an early application of the technology, jury duty is particularly apt,” she said. “Think of it. Almost everyone hates jury duty. No one has the time. Juries are costly, cumbersome, inefficient, and unreliable. The Surrogate system fixes all of that. We can employ a person’s surrogate easily and without hassle. What’s more—and this is critical—we’re able to modify individual surrogates to compensate for biases and prejudices. Surrogates finally allow for an impartial jury in a way never possible before.”
“By impartial you mean emotionless,” said Cervantez, folding his napkin.
“Objective,” clarified Cassandra.
“So much for a jury of your peers.” Cervantez stood up.
“No,” said Cassandra. “This is exactly a jury of your peers. Don’t you see? Just with all the hate, suspicion, and prejudices stripped out.”
“But also all empathy, compassion, and mercy, right?” asked Cervantez. “Hate to tell you, Ms. Howard, but my ability to access those emotions in jurors is often the only shot I have at an effective defense.” He leaned toward her and lowered his voice. “Because,
unfortunately, a good number of my clients are guilty.” He pulled back, his voice returning to regular volume. “Come on.”
“Where are we going?” Cassandra grabbed her purse.
“To see the human being your surrogate jury is going to judge.”
* * *
The County Detention Facility, a cement box the color of sand perched on squat posts, was a short walk back up Clinton, across from the Hall of Justice. A tunnel under the street connected the two buildings, making it easier to transport inmates to and from trial. Drone perches hung from every side of the building like hornets’ nests. Cervantez ushered Cassandra through the security checkpoints. Her short heels clopped on the industrial gray tiles of the beige-painted hallway as a guard led them to the attorney meeting room. The air smelled of an unpleasant combination of urine, body odor, disinfectant, floor wax, and mold.
“Here you go,” said the guard, unlocking a cell door. “You’ll all fit if you squeeze in.”
The tiny space was featureless except for a brown metal table and two chipped metal chairs bolted to the cement-block wall. Ammie Moore sat on one of the chairs, spastically kicking her crossed leg and knocking the silver tracking bracelet around her wrist against the tabletop. Cassandra thought the young white girl looked small and thin in the yellow jumpsuit. She was probably in her mid-twenties. Her unwashed blond hair hung in strands and her skin was blotchy with a red rash. She blinked erratically and her lips twitched, evidence, along with the rash, of regular khem use.
“Hey, Ammie,” said Cervantez, taking the other chair. “How you doing? This is Cassandra Howard. She’s going to be helping with the case.”
“You got a little something?” asked Ammie, ignoring Cassandra. Her voice was pleading.
Cervantez shook his head. “You know I don’t, Ammie. You’ve been getting your script, though, right?”
Ammie snorted. “Yeah. I been getting it. But it’s only enough to keep me from throwing myself out a goddamn window. Can’t you get them to up it? Even a little?”
“I’ll talk to the doctor when I leave.” Cervantez reached into his briefcase and withdrew an e-folder carrying links to the case files. “Do you remember digistamping an agreement to take part in a pilot jury program, Ammie?”
“I don’t know, maybe,” said Ammie. “It sounded cool.”
“Well, I wish you hadn’t done that. Because now I have to defend you in front of a jury I have no experience with. And we already had plenty stacked against us. I want to encourage you one more time to consider a plea deal.”
“But I didn’t kill that guy.” Ammie’s soft voice rose. “I ain’t saying I did it when I didn’t. I’ve done plenty of other stuff, but not this.”
“I know,” said Cervantez, “but with the evidence the state has, I’m not certain I can convince a jury—any jury—that you’re innocent. You’re looking at life without parole. You know that, right?”
Cassandra had read the case file, and Cervantez was not exaggerating the strength of evidence against Ammie. The girl faced a felony murder charge for stabbing a man to death in his car while parked in a weedy lot behind a boarded-up muffler and tire shop on the west side. It was a burned-out area with few security cameras and where police drones rarely flew, so dealers and prostitutes favored it. Investigators found her blood on the passenger seat, her left shoe outside the vehicle, and she admitted the man had picked her up on a corner she worked.
Ammie stared into her lap, picking at her palm.
“You’ve got to give me something to work with, Ammie,” said Cervantez. “You told the police he started slapping you and that you were able to get away and run off. But if you tell me that you weren’t able to get away, then I can argue self-defense. You see?”
Ammie considered Cervantez. She darted her eyes over Cassandra.
Cassandra saw haunted fear in the young girl’s face. She knew from the case file that Ammie had run away from an abusive, alcoholic father at sixteen and had been on the streets ever since. It could not have been an easy life, and the look in her eyes made it clear it had been a life lacking warmth, love, value, or security, all of which Cassandra had known. The girl had been routed for rough days and a bad end.
“You a lawyer?” Ammie asked.
“No,” said Cassandra. “I’m a psychologist.”
“I thought of being a psychologist back when I was little,” said Ammie. She smiled briefly at the memory. “Didn’t quite work out, though. You think you can help me?”
“We’d like to,” said Cassandra. “But you need to tell Mr. Cervantez what really happened. You don’t have to be scared.”
Ammie chewed her lip and rubbed her arms. She looked down. “What if it was C-Jack who done it?”
“Who’s C-Jack?” asked Cervantez.
“My boyfriend. He looks out for me.”
“You mean your pimp,” said Cervantez. “Okay, I’m listening.”
Ammie hesitated and then let the story out in a rush. “The guy goes off like I said, slapping me and yelling that he was going to kill me, and suddenly the door jerked open and C-Jack was pulling me out and the next thing I know he’s in the car stabbing the guy and so I just took off. I didn’t look back either. Not once.”
“Ammie,” said Cervantez, his voice registering bewilderment, “why didn’t you tell this to the police?”
“I was scared C-Jack’d kill me if I told.”
The girl’s tone of trauma and timidity gripped Cassandra. “No one’s going to hurt you,” she said, surprised by the vehemence in her voice.
Cervantez scrambled for his note recorder. “This is good,” he said. “This is a proper defense.”
* * *
Cassandra exited the detention center a half hour later. Cervantez had other clients to see. They’d agreed to meet the next day for her to show him the complete Surrogate system. The setting sun reflected in orange rays from the windows of the surrounding buildings as she walked to the corner to hail an autocab home.
“Hey, Cassie,” a voice called from behind her. She turned to see Forrest jogging to catch up with her. “I forgot how fast a walker you are.”
“One of the benefits of being tall,” said Cassandra.
“How’d it go today?”
“Better than I expected.”
He searched her face to gauge the level of truth behind her words, a habit she found unsettling and annoying.
“Great,” he said. “I want to hear all about it. Let’s get a drink.”
“I can’t,” said Cassandra. “I need to get home. My dad’s waiting.”
“One drink,” said Forrest. He blasted her with his strongest smile. “Please?”
Cassandra laughed. “You think that smile can get you anywhere, don’t you?”
Forrest shrugged. “It has so far. I’m told it’s the dimples.”
“I believe it,” said Cassandra. “I, however, am immune to their appeal.”
“And I believe that,” said Forrest. “It’s probably why I find you so inscrutable.”
“Inscrutable? I’m hardly inscrutable.”
“Oh, but you are,” said Forrest, searching her face again. “Cassandra Howard. One big mystery. Unfathomable. Elusive and remote.”
“Are you done?”
“For now,” said Forrest. “Hey, has Powell called you yet?”
“No,” said Cassandra. “I’m sending him my status report tonight. Why?”
“No reason. I just know he’s wound up for this to go smoothly.”
“Powell is always wound up,” said Cassandra, who had once described the project head of the Surrogate system at Real Thought Analytics as the Dr. Frankenstein of the artificial intelligence industry.
“I know,” said Forrest. “He’s just worried we’re going to screw something up.”
“I’m not going to screw anything up,” said Cassandra. She waved for an autocab. “Are you?”
“That is not my plan,” said Forrest, and he grinned.
* * *
The streetlights were on when Cassandra arrived home. The house where she grew up was a brick American Foursquare near Holbrook and Woodward, walking distance from the Little Rock Baptist Church, where as a child she had worshipped on Sunday mornings with her father. She climbed the cement steps to the pillared front porch that spanned the front of the house where when she was little she had dressed dolls and built cities of connecting plastic blocks on cool autumn evenings while her father rocked on the porch swing, grading papers. She raised her hand to where the doorbell used to be so that the home security eye could scan her I-AM chip.
“Welcome home, Cassandra,” intoned the system as it unlocked the door.
Inside, she thanked the hospice nurse for staying late and went to check on her sleeping father. The monitors beside the hospital bed flickered green and red in the shadowed room. She checked the cat’s bowl before making a dinner of acorn squash, tofu, and sautéed collard greens. She checked e-mails and reviewed project updates while she ate. It was quiet enough for her to hear the subtle creaks and groans the boards of the house made as they struggled with age. After she cleaned up, she returned upstairs to her father’s room.
Jarius Howard had been diagnosed with advanced colon cancer in April. Doctors told him he would likely be dead before the year was out. He had two months to go to beat their prognosis, but his energy and determination to show them up had dropped off sharply in recent weeks and he had grown less interested in living simply to prove fools wrong.
“Did you feed Baedeker?” he asked Cassandra when she came in.
“Yes, Daddy, I fed Baedeker. Your beloved cat is not losing any weight.”
“Unlike me, you mean.” He chuckled and coughed.
“Stop that,” said Cassandra. She sat beside the bed and took her Apple iGlass from her bag and rested it in her lap. She took her father’s emaciated wrist and scanned his I-AM bracelet to check his vitals.
“Everything looks pretty good,” she said.
