We, the Jury

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We, the Jury Page 7

by Robert Rotstein


  The Express Messenger told me during the break I’m doing a good job. He actually said “great” job. I’m impressed with him. I never dreamed I would be, but he followed the trial pretty closely. I don’t agree with all his points, especially not about teenage boys sleeping with older women being okay, but he’s not afraid to take on the Housewife, and someone needs to take her on. If she keeps trying to dominate, I’ll get her to shut up or we’ll be here forever. What’s the phrase? Justice delayed is … something.

  One sip of coffee to clear my palate, then we’ll start, but my lips pucker from the burnt bitterness, and I half gag. I looked for grounds to make a fresh pot, but all they have left is decaf, and I don’t drink decaf. The process they use to decaffeinate the coffee is carcinogenic. The Architect looks up from her self-manicure and smirks.

  “Let’s get going,” I say, and tilt my head toward the Jury Consultant. “Like she said, our decision turns on witness credibility.”

  “To a certain extent,” says the Jury Consultant. “Other evidence as well.”

  “To a certain extent,” I say, nodding. I flutter a hand toward the Student, who reacts as if she wants to duck under the table. Before we got in the jury room, the Student was relaxed, but I guess she’s one of those people who, no matter how social she is, gets nervous when she has to talk in front of crowds. I’m the other way around.

  “Yeah, Lacey was totally credible,” she says in a halting voice.

  “We’re talking about David’s credibility,” I say.

  She places her hand to her mouth. “Oh, sorry, I …”

  “Don’t be sorry,” I say. She shouldn’t be sorry.

  “I can’t lie, I wasn’t that impressed with David,” she says. “I feel like he was kind of … slippery, you know? Even when he testified about the tuna casserole attack, he was always slipping in adjectives dissing Amanda—argumentative stuff. I mean, like, she deserved to be dissed and all, but still …”

  “David was an ineffective witness,” says the Jury Consultant, nodding.

  “You can say that again,” says the Grandmother. “I understand a man crying under these circumstances, but that hysterical sobbing? Sometimes I wondered if he was feigning it.”

  “This trial was brutal on him and his kids,” says the Housewife. “Many men would break down and—”

  The Grandmother holds up her hand. “You’ve spoken for quite a long time already. Now it’s time to let other people have a turn.” Her voice is surprisingly young for an old, deaf woman. I think it’s the brittle tone more than the words that causes the Housewife to widen her eyes and jerk back slightly, like she’s only just realized she’s been stung by a bee.

  “My husband has seen some tragedy in his life,” says the Grandmother. “Up until the dementia, he never cried much at all. There’s something else that troubles me. David shouted at the prosecutor during cross-examination. It made me wonder whether he was the abusive spouse.”

  “His testimony about what started the fight on the afternoon in question was credible,” says the Housewife. I guess the bee sting healed over fast. “He asked what they were going to do for their wedding anniversary the following day, and she’d forgotten about their anniversary, and he was hurt and told her so, and as always she started spewing insults, and swore and him, and accused him of sleeping with Annalise Rauch—”

  “Which he did,” says the Jury Consultant.

  “Yeah, but … we’ll get to that,” says the Housewife. “My point is that it’s all consistent. Amanda would go bonkers at the slightest provocation, and this time David stood up for himself, and she tried to kill him.”

  “Hard to believe a husband could care so much about a wedding anniversary after so many years of marriage,” says the Express Messenger. “Especially an abused husband. Does your husband care that much about your wedding anniversary?”

  “This isn’t about me or my life,” says the Housewife.

  Which says to me that her husband doesn’t care about their anniversary.

  “A lot of men care about their wedding anniversaries,” says the Architect, like the faithful Indian companion Tonto she is. “It’s sexist to claim it’s only wives who care. My ex-husband cared a lot. I wish I’d realized how nice that was.”

  “I’m not sexist,” says the Express Messenger, who looks hurt. “I was raised by a single mom.”

  Who you still live with, I think. I glance around the room. I can tell that’s what most of us are thinking.

  “Anyway, David looks like a liar,” says the Express Messenger.

  “What does that even mean?” asks the Student.

  “It means,” says the Express Messenger, “that he looks like a liar.”

  “Just what does that look like?” says the Grandmother.

  “Like Bill and Hillary Clinton,” says the Express Messenger. “You know, always making up long answers, looking into the camera like they know everything, but telling lies.”

  “Oh, dear Lord,” says the Grandmother.

  The Clergyman, who for all I know has been in a coma all afternoon, comes to and lets out a deep belly snort that reminds me of this horny bull elephant I once saw on the Nat Geo channel. He calms down fast and sits back in his chair, folding his hands on the desk, closing his eyes, and acting like it never happened.

  “I think we should focus on specifics, not speculation about whether people do or don’t look like liars,” says the Student. “There were a few times David contradicted himself or Lacey, like the tuna casserole thing, but his story was pretty solid, at least for me. So I feel like he was sort of credible, but not totally? That probably doesn’t make any sense, but … Sorry.” She pauses. “I took this psychology-and-the-law class at my college last year.”

  “Yeah, I remember you talked about that during voir dire,” I say.

  “Anyway,” says the Student, “I read this article saying lack of eye contact, arm crossing, picking or biting your nails, and, um, what else?—like, saying ums and uhs—is a sign of lying?” She realizes her mistake and covers her mouth with her hand to hide an embarrassed giggle. “Anyway, that’s what the article said, and David did all those things.”

  “If that’s true, almost everyone in this room is a liar,” says the Housewife.

  She’s right. At the end of the table, the Clergyman is sitting with his arms crossed, as he’s been doing almost the entire hour and a half we’ve been in here. He never makes eye contact with anyone. The Architect has stopped playing with her nails, but she’s done it a lot. The Express Messenger is chewing on his nails. The Student says “um” a lot. What do I do? Do I do things like that? I don’t think I do. I’m a calm kind of girl.

  “Those supposed clues to lying are urban legends,” says the Jury Consultant. “And, by the way, we’re a mostly female jury, but another urban legend is that women are better at recognizing liars than men. The truth is, it’s very difficult to tell through observation whether someone is lying. There are, however, other emotions that can go along with lying—fear, stress—and those do have expressions associated with them. A consultant named Cynthia Cohen calls them microexpressions: frowns, a raised voice, higher-pitched or faster speech, long answers. Changes from baseline behavior.”

  “I guess I should’ve said, ‘David looks like a liar, sounds like a liar,’” says the Express Messenger, who’s slouched down in his chair, sulking.

  “We are all liars in the eyes of God,” says the Clergyman, causing half of us to flinch.

  “David was emotional, but who wouldn’t be?” says the Housewife. “He’s volatile, but Amanda shaped him like that ever since he was basically a child. His testimony was generally consistent, and Cranston hammered him on cross-examination for two days without undermining his credibility. As for these so-called signs of lying? I don’t believe in convicting a man based on psychobabble and voodoo science.”

 
; “David Sullinger was not a good witness,” says the Jury Consultant, shaking her head almost apologetically. “The shouting at the prosecution, the long answers, the slouching—I’ve seen hundreds, maybe thousands of witnesses during my career, and he just wasn’t good.”

  “Voodoo science,” says the Housewife.

  “David admitted he lied about the casserole incident,” says the Jury Consultant.

  The Housewife almost jumps out of her chair, but the Architect subdues her with a touch on the wrist.

  “He confessed to lying to the doctors in the hospital emergency room about how he got his burns,” says the Jury Consultant.

  “But that’s what victims of spousal abuse do,” says the Housewife. “They lie out of fear; they lie to protect the other spouse; they lie to protect the children.”

  “That might be true,” says the Jury Consultant. “But do you realize you used the word ‘lie’ three times in one sentence to describe David Sullinger?”

  The Housewife sits back and crosses her arms, her posture identical to the Architect’s. Bitch bookends.

  We spend the next ten minutes debating David Sullinger’s credibility. I haven’t weighed in, because, as jury foreperson, it’s my job to be objective and let everyone have their say. Finally, whoever wants to talk has talked. There’s no consensus. So I finally weigh in.

  “I think David’s credibility was meh,” I say.

  Every eye turns on me, like they’re waiting for something more. I cross my arms. What more is there to say?

  THE HONORABLE

  NATALIE QUINN-GILBERT

  Before this trial started, I read in the media that David Sullinger took a polygraph test. We judges can’t allow the results of polygraph tests to come into evidence. The outcome of a polygraph test depends on the bias of the human being administering the test. So we leave credibility determinations to jurors. Juries have something that machines still lack: a sense of moral responsibility. My husband used to say that potential remorse is the sine qua non of doing the right thing.

  Jonathan reveres—revered—Bob Dylan, whom he discovered in 1962 at age fourteen. There’s a lyric from “Desolation Row”: They bring them to the factory where the heart-attack machine is strapped across their shoulders … Jonathan says—would say, did say—that the heart-attack machine was a polygraph machine, and I disagree—would disagree, did disagree—because that didn’t make sense to me, and we’d have one of those silly debates that lawyers have, that spouses have, over the trivial and unprovable. Now I think I know what he means, what he meant: truth machines dehumanize and kill, just as heart attacks dehumanize and kill.

  Jonathan said I became a judge because I was obsessed with discovering the truth. Jonathan says he didn’t become a judge because he’s concerned with stories. The best lawyers tell the best stories, based on the best facts and the best truths. Everyone seeks out the best stories, the best facts, and the best truths. Jonathan was a storyteller and a truth seeker. I am a judge.

  The outcome of a polygraph test depends on the human administering the test. The outcome of a jury trial depends on the human overseeing the trial—and human biases differ, so outcomes differ. Judges can alter the truth. I alter the truth.

  Jonathan’s four loves are Natalie Quinn, trying cases, Bob Dylan, and the Chicago Cubs. Oh, and drawing and painting, so that’s five. I have one love, and he’s Roland Jonathan Gilbert.

  If only Jonathan could have seen Dylan win the Nobel Prize. If only he could have seen the Cubs win the World Series.

  JUROR NO. 52

  THE EXPRESS MESSENGER / ACTOR

  My mom can’t get enough of the trial. It’s awkward. She wants to talk about it, but I can’t. Last night, she even woke me up in the garage where I sleep and asked me whether an article she found on the internet about the closing arguments was accurate.

  “I can’t talk about it, Mom.” It sucks that I have to disappoint her.

  “Oh, you know no juror ever follows that rule,” she says, waving her hand at me dismissively.

  My mom has never been on a jury, but lack of info has never stopped her from having an opinion. How the hell does she get out of jury duty? It’s not like she has an important job. She manages a bowling alley. (She can still bowl in the 180s, even with fucked-up, arthritic knees.) She tells me she was a hustler when she was a teenager. Hustled suckers in the six bowling alleys located in Sepulveda County and never got caught. It’s fifty-fifty whether she’s making it up or telling the truth. Mom’s a great bowler and a great storyteller.

  This is the third jury I’ve been on. The only other people on this jury who’ve served as jurors before are the Grandmother and the Clergyman. The know-it-all Housewife hasn’t even been on a jury. I know what I’m doing.

  I only started living in my mother’s garage when I came back from LA after my acting career hit a speed bump. The speed bump being that I turned thirty and lost my agent the next day. Man, those dudes must have ticklers that alert them when their unsuccessful clients hit thirty. At least I was better off than the actresses—for those poor girls, the tickler kicks in at twenty-four. Talk about sucking. At least I had an agent and got two entries in the Internet Movie Database. That makes my mom proud.

  The judge didn’t order us to say if we knew any of the other jurors, so I haven’t told the Grandmother I attended her high school. The Grandmother either doesn’t remember me or remembers me and doesn’t want to embarrass me by acknowledging it. She scared me shitless back then. Now she’s old and frail, and her hearing sucks. Time sucks. She also hates me—got the bailiff on my ass about using too many cuss words.

  I do regret not acting in high school productions. It was harder for a boy to pursue drama back then. Sepulveda County was conservative, still is, and acting in student productions was gay. Yeah, I’m not proud of it, but I used that word back then. “It doesn’t mean that; it’s just an expression,” I maintained when I got called to the Grandmother’s office. That justification didn’t fly with the Grandmother, and it especially didn’t fly with my lesbian single mom, who’s brave and worked her ass off all her life to provide for me and teach me right from wrong. The more ashamed I got, the more I protested my innocence to both my mom and the Grandmother. Why do we do stuff like that?

  Anyway, I didn’t get actor looks until senior year, when I grew four inches to five foot nine. Not tall; in the Tom Cruise range. Some people say I look like a younger, blonder Tom Cruise.

  My father left when I was four years old. Went back to Buffalo, New York. I’ve seen him once since, when I was ten. Only when I got on this jury did my mom tell me that my dad, the fucking twisted turd, hit her. When she started going into more detail, I covered my ears like a six-year-old, and I said—no, I shouted, and I don’t shout at my mom—that I couldn’t talk about the case. Which was true, but mostly I didn’t want to hear the details of the abuse, because I still remember it—or enough of it. My mom started crying, and I hugged her, and then she went to make chicken cacciatore for dinner, and a half hour later, she was fine. That was after the fourth day of trial, but it’s stuck with me. I force myself to ignore my father’s abuse of my mom. I’m a juror, so I have to ignore that shit so I can be fair. That’s why I’ve been so hard on David’s testimony—because I’m emotionally on his side, and I want to test my prejudices.

  Now the Clergyman clears his throat and readjusts his position. The sound and movement startles me back to reality, because most of the time the man’s a mute statue. How unfriendly the guy is! Oh, he’ll say hello, goodbye, excuse me, and he’ll chat about the weather and traffic, but that’s about it. Yet, every Sunday, he preaches the word of God, where you have to be charismatic? Really? I’ve seen people like that in my acting class—no personality until they get on the stage or in front of a camera, and then they’re fucking awesome. They can play anyone convincingly. They’re like human sponges, and that’s probably a good
analogy, because sponges have nothing interesting about them intrinsically. It’s what they soak up that matters. Maybe that’s my problem as an actor. Maybe I’m so brimming with life that I can’t soak up the lives of others. Or maybe my agent’s right; maybe I don’t have the talent to transform what I absorb into dramatic gold. It sucks when you want to be famous—not mega famous, just famous enough—and you can’t be.

  The messenger job is a pretty good one. I get to meet all kinds of different people, and that helps me hone my acting skills. When I was in Hollywood, I worked the wrong jobs, which may be why things didn’t work out too good. Clerk at a baseball card shop; receptionist at an accounting firm; barista in Brentwood, where I met a lot of people but they were all rich. I just read about a news anchorman who quit his job to become an Uber driver because he wanted to meet people and hear their stories. Why didn’t I become an Uber driver?

  The Grandmother also hates me because I hit on the Student at Subway. I can’t lie, I’m attracted to black women. It was an honest mistake. I knew the Student was in college, but I thought she was a few years older. She’s a kid. I know I act like a kid, but I realize I’m not.

  “Let’s talk about Lacey,” the Foreperson says.

  “Absolutely,” the Architect says. “She’s the most important witness in the case. Believe her and you believe David, and if you believe David, then you gotta vote not guilty. If you all agree she was telling the truth—and how could you not?—then we can get out of here tonight.”

  Everyone nods—well, everyone except the Clergyman—but statues don’t count.

  The Foreperson checks her cell phone. “It’s five minutes to five o’clock. Even if I agree with you, which I do, I don’t think we can reach a verdict in time. We’ll have to come back tomorrow.”

  I told the Foreperson during the last break I thought she was doing a good job. I lied because I wanted to make her feel good. She’s doing a shitty job. She’s allowed me and the Housewife to hijack the deliberations. My other juries picked really good foremen—I guess I should say forepeople, right?—and the other forepeople didn’t allow bullshit to go on, made sure everyone participated. No one could talk too long, but no one could sit silently like the Clergyman. Yeah, I lied to make the Foreperson feel good. We’re supposed to be judging credibility, and I just told a lie. We all lie, right? Anyway, I think if the Foreperson had done a better job, we could’ve gotten this done today, because I think we all believed Lacey, unless the Clergyman turns out to be a loose cannon. We could still get it done today. Ten minutes to talk, five minutes to vote, five seconds to push the red button on the wall, and we’re done. I don’t think the Foreperson wants to be done. More than anyone else in the room, she seems to be having fun.

 

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