Media Justice

by Dennis Carstens

  “That’s the prosecution team,” Marc told her. “I’m so good they need a whole team,” he smiled.

  Brittany smiled and laughed at his little joke and then said, “I hope so.”

  The two of them did not notice several reporters scribbling notes about this exchange. Later that day, Channel Seven in Minneapolis would report that Brittany was laughing and joking as if her murder trial was just another joke not to be taken seriously. It was yet another report that went national on the news and viral through the internet.

  “The two talking to the lawyers are probably jury consultants, people who think they are experts at picking juries.”

  “Are they?” Brittany said.

  “Are they what?”

  “Experts and why don’t we have any?” Brittany said.

  “Who knows?” Marc replied. “No one really knows how to pick a jury. They think they’re experts and know more than the rest of us. Maybe they do. I’m supposed to have one coming. I thought he’d be here by now,” Marc said.

  He heard the exterior door open and swiveled in his chair to look. “Speak of the devil,” Marc said when he saw his officemate, Barry Cline come in. Barry was also an experienced criminal defense lawyer and wanted to help with Brittany’s’ case. Marc had submitted a Notice of Representation to the court and the prosecution about Barry to allow this. Barry had cleared most of his calendar for the week and Marc was glad to have his input and assistance. Barry was delighted to get the free publicity as well.

  He apologized for being late due to underestimating the drive time. He took a seat next to Brittany and the three of them chatted quietly while waiting for the judge.

  A minute after Barry’s arrival, the judge’s clerk, Marion Kellogg and Connors’ personal court reporter, Bill Franzen came out and set up their positions. Kellogg was seated to the judge’s right and Franzen to his left, between the judge and the witness stand. Barely a minute after they appeared, Connors came into the courtroom and the trial of the State of Minnesota vs Brittany Ann Riley was officially underway.

  Connors spent roughly ten minutes giving the crowd in the gallery a brief description of how jury selection would proceed. He was under no obligation to give the description of the procedure but decided to do so which would also serve to inform the public through the media.

  When the judge was almost finished, the outer doors opened and the attorney general herself came marching in, followed by two young staff members. Peterson walked up to the gate and said, “I apologize for the interruption, your Honor. I’ve decided this case is so important that I need to give it my personal attention.” She turned slightly toward the gallery and the camera in the corner televising the proceedings and continued by saying, “I will be personally sitting in to see to it the people of Minnesota are provided with justice.”

  Despite the fact that he was bristling with indignation, especially at the posturing politician’s last remark, Connors said, “Welcome, Madam Attorney General. If you would be so kind as to take a seat, I’d like to continue,” he finished with more than a touch of sarcasm.

  Peterson handed her coat to one of the flunkies who trailed behind her. The two of them, not finding a place to sit, went out to wait in the hall. The attorney general went through the gate and took a seat at the prosecution table.

  Marc sat quietly, his left elbow on the table top, his chin in his left palm, observing this little farce and trying not to smile. Barry Cline turned his chair to face the wall so the reporters would not see him stifling a laugh.

  Agnes Moore, the first name on the jury panel list, was led into the courtroom by the female deputy Marc had spoken to earlier. Agnes was a short woman, barely five feet and a little on the plump side. She was wearing her best navy blue jacket, skirt, white blouse and sensible black shoes. Noticeably nervous, she raised her left hand, then switched to her right with an embarrassed giggle, was sworn in and took the witness stand.

  Agnes was a forty four year old mother of three teenagers. She was married to the same man, Frank, for nineteen years. Agnes had worked in one of the Mayo Clinic cafeterias as a shift supervisor. Frank had owned a car repair business for the past twelve years. An excellent mechanic, he had earned a reputation for honesty and quality workmanship. Almost ninety percent of his business was from repeat customers. Frank and Agnes Moore were about as Midwest America as could be found.

  The search of Agnes’ back ground had not uncovered a single flaw. Marc had originally placed her on his “No” list. A church going, albeit Lutheran, middle class woman with a solid family was not likely to be very sympathetic to a case involving infanticide. Then Jeff Modell turned up a piece of news that raised some eyebrows.

  When Agnes was nineteen, Jeff was able to uncover several visits to a Planned Parenthood Clinic. He also unearthed a bill for three hundred seventy five dollars paid by Agnes’ mother. Agnes had an abortion. The question was; would this make her more or less sympathetic? Marc had moved her name from his “No” list to the “Maybes”.

  Judge Connors started out by lightly asking her some a few simple questions to get her to talk and calm down. When he got into more substantive areas, the judge was basically asking the same questions that were on the questionnaire she and all of those selected for the jury pool had filled out. A copy of each questionnaire had been provided to both the defense and prosecution. The judge also took it upon himself to elicit answers to how much influence the media coverage had on her. Was she willing to admit to a preconceived bias? If so, could she set that aside?

  When Connors finished, he handed the questioning over to Marc.

  Marc began by introducing himself, Barry and Brittany then transitioned into his questioning. He had decided to meet the publicity issue head on. He spent almost ten minutes on the subject with her. Not really asking questions to find out if she had heard of the case but to get her to promise to set that aside and listen to the evidence. Agnes, with an almost imperceptible touch of hesitation, promised that she would do that.

  Marc took almost ten more minutes asking her questions about the concepts of innocent until proven guilty, proof beyond a reasonable doubt and the prosecution’s burden of proof. Like almost every American, Agnes owned a television set, so the terminology was familiar to her. What Marc was mainly trying to do was to indoctrinate her into what her obligations would be and to elicit a promise that she would be fair, impartial and leave any biases she may have at the courtroom door. It was pointless to try to find twelve people who had not heard about this case. Oddly enough, there would be at least two or three who genuinely had not and two or three more willing to lie about it.

  After what appeared to be a mini-conference with Peterson and Vanderbeck, Danica Hart began her turn questioning of Agnes. Most of the main issues had been thoroughly gone over by Judge Connors and Kadella already. Even so, Danica went over many of the same issues, except media bias. This hardly surprised Marc and Barry. Obviously, the prosecution was fine with each juror having watched and read as much about the case as possible. Agnes had already promised to set aside any potential bias. Hart’s main job was to also indoctrinate the witness that it was the state who was looking out for “The People” and it was their job to obtain justice.

  Then, just before Hart finished, like a too curious child who has been told not to touch a hot object but can’t resist it anyway, Hart gave Agnes one more chance.

  “You’re sure you have not formed an opinion about guilt or innocence?” Hart asked.

  Agnes sat quietly, her head slanted downward, kneading her hands together, then said, “Well, to be honest, I’m just not sure. I mean, I’ll try, your Honor,” she said looking at Connors, “But I just don’t know how anyone could do that to her daughter.”

  As soon as the words came out, Marc was on his feet. Before he could say anything, Connors held up a hand to stop him and said, “Thank you for your time, Mrs. Moore. You’re excused.”

  As the deputy was leading her out of the courtroom, Conn
ors checked the time and said, “We’ll take a fifteen minute break now. I’ll see counsel in chambers.”

  “We took almost an hour questioning the first one,” Connors began as he removed his robe and took his chair while the lawyers found seats. “We have to move it along or we’ll be here until spring. If I have to, I’ll put a time limit on it. For now, let’s try to just speed it up a bit and cut out the repetition. Suggestions? Objections?”

  “Yes,” Attorney General Peterson said, “He should have had to use one of his preemptory challenges on that juror.”

  “Anything else?” Connors asked ignoring her. “Okay. Mr. Kadella, hang on a minute. Madam Attorney General, I’d like a word with you please.”

  Connors waited until everyone else had left then said to Marc, “I asked you to stay so I wouldn’t be accused of any ex parte communications.” He then turned to Peterson and, as politely as possible said, “Madam Attorney General, with all due respect, you are entitled to assist in the trial of this case. However, if you ever make a grandstand entrance and disrupt my court like that again, you personally will write a ten thousand dollar check to the court and I won’t hesitate to admonish you publicly. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to use the restroom.”

  Peterson, whose eyes had widened to the size of saucers, clamped her lips together and stormed out. As Marc was leaving, he looked back at Connors, smiled and gave him a thumbs up.

  Barely two minutes later, the AG was holding a press conference in the very crowded hallway. She explained that something had come up and she had to get back to St. Paul right away. Peterson assured them her personal interest in the case would not wane. She had no doubt Brittany was guilty and would be brought to justice.

  FORTY SIX

  Marc, with Brittany walking next to him, trudged through the skyway over the Zumbro River, heading back to the Holiday Inn. He was a little crabby, tired and very hungry. It was almost 7:00 o’clock and he had nothing to eat since the noon lunch break. For lunch, even though the temperature had only climbed to a positive two degrees, they all needed some fresh air. Marc, Barry and the Rileys had gone to a Subway sandwich shop about a block from the courthouse. After being indoors in the overheated building, the cold, fresh air and sunshine felt refreshing.

  It was now the end of the second day of jury selection and so far only four jurors had been picked; two men and two women. They were all white which, given the make-up of southeastern Minnesota, was no surprise. With a white defendant, the racial composition of the jury shouldn’t be a factor. After adjourning for the day, Judge Connors had called the lawyers into chambers and let his displeasure be known, again, at how slowly things were going. He was especially annoyed with Vanderbeck. The prosecutor kept going over the same ground with each of the veniremen that the judge and Marc had already covered and his style was slow and deliberate. Vanderbeck was taking twice as long as Marc to cover the same ground.

  Marc was feeling pretty good about the four jurors selected. Three of them, one of the men and both women were on his list of “maybes”. There was nothing about any of them to raise alarm bells or he would have used a preemptory challenge to excuse them.

  One of the women was a single, twenty six year old nurse at Mayo who was given paid leave by the clinic to serve. The other woman was a thirty two year old, divorced single mother of two. She assured the court that she and her ex got along fine and he would watch the kids while she was gone. She was one of six assistant principals at Rochester John Marshall High School and time away would not be a problem.

  The first man selected was a sixty two year old retired dentist. Marc liked him because he believed that most people with that much higher education would be more likely to think rationally and not let their emotions make decisions for them.

  The fourth one was on Marc’s “Yes” list and Marc was pleasantly surprised that he made the cut. A twenty two year old single college student taking a break from school. He was a nice looking young man who might be sympathetic to a girl that looks as good as Brittany does. Also, when he claimed he had not heard about the case, he seemed quite believable. Knowing males that age are far more interested in video games, beer and girls than the news, it didn’t seem to be much of a stretch to believe he had not heard of the case.

  Vanderbeck had completed his questioning of the young man and then he and Hart huddled with their jury consultants. Marc could see a quiet yet heated exchange between Vanderbeck and the lead consultant who was vehemently shaking his head “no”. While Marc continued to watch, fully expecting the prosecution to use one of their nine peremptory challenges to bump him, Vanderbeck turned to Connors and accepted the young man. When he did this, Danica Hart looked right at Marc and rolled her eyes.

  The good news when the session adjourned was that Barbara and Floyd were going home. Putting up with the two of them, especially Barbara’s meddling all day for two days was stretching Marc’s patience. At one point he even had to have a stern talk with Barbara to stop the kibitzing and second guessing.

  The bad news was Barry had to leave. One of his clients had an employee who was jammed up and needed a lawyer. Barry’s client ran a legitimate car dealership and at least a half dozen illegitimate chop shops throughout the Upper Midwest. The owner was well insulated and even though the cops knew who he was, they couldn’t get to him. But the nature of his illegitimate business was such that Barry had a steady stream of clients from a man who paid the attorney fees for them with cashier’s checks. It was a little problematic ethically but, with each of them, Barry made sure the man paying the bills signed a statement acknowledging who the client was.

  Marc and Brittany reached the hotel elevators and Marc asked her if she wanted to get some dinner. She begged off saying she was tired and would get something from room service, which was fine with Marc. He would rather eat alone and work some more on the jury pool list.

  Wednesday morning Connors began promptly at nine A.M. The next prospective juror brought in was a thirty four year old male doctor in the urology department at Mayo. A very good looking married man with two preschool children whose wife was staying home until the kids started school. Time off from the clinic would not be a problem.

  Marc quickly went through his indoctrination questions and informed the court the doctor was acceptable. He was originally on Marc‘s list of “Maybes” as a 6 on a scale of 1 to 10. Last night at dinner, Marc had moved him from a 6 to an 8.

  Vanderbeck spent barely five minutes questioning the man then also informed Connors he was acceptable.

  The doctor was led away to be taken home to pack for the duration of the trial. While this was happening, one of the deputies came through the bar and over to Marc. He bent down to whisper in his ear. The deputy was an older man riding out his time until retirement. Marc had gotten to know him enough to say hello and chat. ”There’s a woman outside who says she works for you and wants to get in.”

  “What’s her name?” Marc asked thinking it might be Sandy with more information on jurors.

  “Shoot. I didn’t get it or I forgot.”

  “What does she look like?” Marc asked.

  “Well, I should probably sit down before my knees buckle. On the other hand, I can die happy now having been close enough to see and smell such a woman.”

  Marc laughed and said, “Have Madeline come in please.”

  While the deputy went to get Maddy, the next venireman was sworn and seated. Connors began his routine of asking the now boring, standard questions. A moment later he noticed an obvious stirring and buzz go through the gallery and looked up to see Maddy walk toward the gate.

  “I am really sorry, your Honor,” she said with obvious sincerity.

  “It’s quite all right, Ms. Rivers,” Connors said with a smile. “Please come in and have a seat,” he gestured with his left hand toward Marc’s table.

  She quickly took the chair Barry had used. She dropped her purse next to the table, turned to give a grinning Brittany, who was very happy
to see her, a hug. Marc leaned over behind Brittany and whispered to Madeline, “Always need to make a grand entrance.”

  Maddy dropped her left hand below the table behind Brittany, smiled at Marc and extended her middle finger at him which almost made him laugh.

  Over the next hour, they dismissed two more possible jurors. One Marc dismissed was a thirty year old woman, married mother of three who was on Marc’s “No” list. Sandy had discovered she was a Republican member of a pro life group. Marc brought that out during questioning but she denied it would influence her decision. Vanderbeck argued vehemently to keep her and Connors ruled she would not be dismissed for cause just because of her political opinions. Marc used one of his precious fifteen peremptory challenges on her.

  The next one up was another twenty something single man. He was acceptable to Marc and Judge Connors so Vanderbeck used a peremptory on him.

  The judge took a short break after which the pace continued at a quicker rate. By noon, they had gone through three more and selected one more bringing the total number of jurors to six.

  A half hour before the lunch break, Madeline left to secure a table for them back at the Holiday Inn restaurant. When she got there the place was already full but there was a young man at the hostess stand. Maddy had little trouble convincing him to get her a table which he promptly did.

  “I am so glad you’re here,” Brittany said for at least the tenth time.

  “Marc can be a pretty boring date,” Maddy answered.

  “You should’ve seen the doctor that was picked before you got here. What a honey!” Brittany said.

  “Really? Tell me,” she urged Brittany.

  “Married with two kids,” Marc drolly interjected.