We, the Jury

by Robert Rotstein

  “It’s not that,” the Student says. “I’m an anthropology major, and biological anthropology is related to archaeology. I’ve gone on some digs.” She holds up the pickax. “Everyone’s been calling this thing a pickax. It’s really a mattock. That’s because the head has an adze and a cutter. A pickax has a pick instead of an adze, and a hatchet has a hammer instead of a pick.” She goes over to the credenza and leafs through an evidence binder.

  “What are you looking for?” the Architect asks impatiently.

  “That receipt,” the Student says. “It was …” It takes her another couple of minutes to find Amanda’s purchase receipt from a home supply megastore not far from the Sullingers’ house.

  “This is the receipt for the mattock,” the Student says. “Amanda also bought a trowel, a plastic bucket, a half-dozen exterior floodlights, two rolls of masking tape, a pack of AAA batteries, and some household cleaning supplies. A mattock, trowel, and bucket are tools used for archaeological digs.”

  “Neither of the lawyers mentioned this,” the Housewife says. “Can we even talk about it?”

  “It’s in evidence,” the Jury Consultant says. “We can consider whatever is in evidence.”

  “I’d like to hear more about this,” the Grandmother says, smiling shyly at the Student.

  The Student turns slightly away from the Grandmother. That’s too bad. My mom taught me how important it is to forgive—not just for the other person’s soul but also for your own.

  “Please continue,” the Jury Consultant says to the Student.

  “Okay. I feel like maybe Amanda bought the mattock because one of the kids was going on a dig. Even my public high school had an archaeology club. I bet the private school those Sullinger kids went to had one, too, or maybe even offered an archaeology class.”

  “What’s your point?” the Housewife asks.

  “Isn’t it obvious?” the Jury Consultant says. “Her point is that this receipt, and the fact that the pickax is actually a mattock, proves that Amanda had a benign reason for having the tool in her home. She wasn’t planning on using it to murder her husband. It was the other way around.”

  The Housewife shakes her head, starts to say something, but can’t seem to get the words out.

  “Why didn’t the cops figure this out?” the Student asks.

  “I’m sure they did and determined there was no such dig,” the Housewife says. “If there was some kind of dig at school, the police would’ve discovered it. Lacey or Dillon would’ve testified to it.”

  “Now you’re the one who’s speculating,” the Grandmother says. “If there’s one thing that’s become clear in this trial, it’s that we can’t begin to fathom the motivations of the Sullinger children. Maybe they didn’t mention the archaeology dig, because they were never asked. Maybe Lacey was the one going on the dig, and she knew that if she mentioned it, she would convict her father. Who knows?”

  “The prosecution wouldn’t miss something like this,” the Housewife insists.

  “Cranston wouldn’t?” I say. “Sure he would. Not to mention screwup Detective Beckermann.”

  “Cranston missed a lot of things, and Beckermann made it worse,” the Jury Consultant says. “The lawyers in the district attorney’s office have a lot of trial experience, but they’re no match for a high-priced private defense attorney like Jenna Blaylock. Look at all the celebrities who’ve gotten away with murder over the years. Famous private practitioners against assistant DAs.”

  The Student picks up the mattock and takes her place near the knife holder. “Let’s do this.”

  The Jury Consultant gets in her face. The Student waits a beat and then shouts, “Ready!”

  The Jury Consultant jerks the pickax or mattock or whatever the hell it is out of the Student’s hands, spins around, and runs out the door to the courtroom. When the door slams, the Student hasn’t yet drawn the knife from the holder.

  THE COURTROOM CLERK

  MICK REDMOND

  I’m on the phone with my husband, Eric, talking about Star Wars. No, not talking—arguing. For the umpteenth time in the past three weeks, he and I are debating whether the Star Wars canon should still include the previously released material about the Expanded Universe. Eric says it was okay for Disney to redefine the canon, because they acquired the copyright from George Lucas. I say you shouldn’t change the canon, that you can’t go back once the cat’s out of the bag—and the Expanded Universe is out of the bag. He gets pissed when I call him Mickey Mouse’s myrmidon. That’s a word I learned from the judge’s late husband, who was a walking dictionary and loved using exotic words. Eric doesn’t know what “myrmidon” means, but he’s pissed about it anyway, and he’s raising his voice.

  This isn’t some trivial argument, not on your life. We both love Star Wars, one of the many things we have in common, but if this disagreement continues, we’ll have to seek counseling. I just bought my nephew some Star Wars Legos—they’re for six and up, and he’s four, but I doubt he’ll choke on a block, and you can’t start a kid too early on Star Wars—and I can’t have Eric poisoning the child’s young mind about the canon.

  My husband is making some unconvincing point about the Sith when a juror runs into the courtroom. She looks crazed and is carrying a pickax. Not only a pickax, but the pickax, as in the murder weapon, holy hell. Why would the judge let them take the thing inside the jury room in the first place? I told Bradley to talk her out of it, but … Damn it, Bradley!

  I hang up the phone while Eric is in midsentence—an action that will be hard to explain later. I doubt he’ll believe I had to go because a juror ran into the courtroom with a pickax. Deputy Kobashigawa, who’s helping me process some papers, springs out of his desk chair and places his hand on his holster. This is the closest I’ve ever seen him go to his service revolver.

  I don’t know the jurors as well as he does, but from what I do know about them, I would have expected antics like this from the Express Messenger or the Architect, or maybe the Foreperson if someone egged her on. This is the dignified Jury Consultant, and not only is she brandishing a murder weapon, she’s laughing.

  “What’s going on, ma’am?” Kobashigawa asks, his tone commanding and sharp, like the sound of a club hammer striking dense metal. This must have been the voice he used while patrolling the streets.

  Between giggles, she says, “I’m so, so sorry. Just part of a discussion of the physical evidence.” She glances at the pickax as if she only now realized she’s holding it. “I think we’re done with this.” She offers the weapon to Bradley, and once he takes it, she smooths out her black skirt, takes a couple of deep breaths, and, without the trace of a smile, walks back into the jury room.

  “What do you think that was about?” Kobashigawa asks.

  “Probably releasing the tremendous tension they’ve been under.”

  “Do you think I should go in there?”

  “I didn’t hear any bloodcurdling screams.”

  He shrugs, walks over and pokes his head into the deliberation room, lingers a moment, and then shrugs again before going back to his desk.

  I pick up the phone and call Eric back. Before I can apologize and explain why I had to go, he hangs up on me. “Jesus,” I say.

  “Another Star Wars argument?” Kobashigawa asks.

  “He’s so damned stubborn.”

  Kobashigawa shrugs. “One man’s apocrypha are another man’s canon.”

  Coming from him, the statement startles me almost as much as the Jury Consultant’s entrance did. Bradley Kobashigawa is a complex man.

  “Don’t look so surprised,” he says, clearly reading my expression. “We talk about canon at church. Adult Sunday school.”

  “Where do you stand on the issue?”

  “I follow the rules as set down by the church. It’s simpler that way.”

  “Simple is no fun. Simple
is fascistic.”

  “By that, you mean …?”

  “No freedom. If you capitulate, you’re on the side of the Empire. I prefer being part of the Rebel Alliance.”

  “You lost me there, Mick.”

  “Not a Star Wars fan?”

  “I like Star Trek better. Because my son does, not that I know much about it. So, have you ever seen anything like that?”

  “Like what?”

  “A juror running out of the deliberation room carrying a murder weapon and looking like she’s about to go on a killing spree.”

  “I’ve seen crazier things. I’m sure you know about Judge Halleck jumping over the bench in his robe to help his bailiff tackle a defendant who was trying to escape during sentencing. I was his substitute clerk that day. Then there was the guy who came to court dressed in one of those old-fashioned black-and-white-striped prison uniforms to try to get out of jury duty. Judge Quinn-Gilbert was great. She toyed with him, used all her techniques to keep him around as long as she could. She was masterful. Ultimately, the prosecutor challenged him. Oh, there was never a judge who could control a courtroom the way Judge Quinn-Gilbert did.”

  He nods sadly, and I want to cry—truly, I do—because I realize I inadvertently used the past tense. We can’t have this discussion in the courtroom, not with the judge so close by, but what will we do? Is it our obligation to report the judge’s confusion to Presiding Judge Halleck? Do we wait it out? With these thoughts, I feel like the betrayer Lando Calrissian. No, wrong gospel—I feel like Judas. Judge Quinn-Gilbert’s life was her husband and the bench, and now that Jonathan is gone, to deprive her of the bench would be …

  Melodramatic? Maybe. But melodrama can still be true.

  JUROR NO. 52

  THE EXPRESS MESSENGER / ACTOR

  It’s 4:12 in the afternoon when the Jury Consultant comes back inside the jury room. She’s empty-handed.

  “I gave the mattock back to the bailiff,” she says. “I hope no one minds.”

  The Student has been holding the knife all this time. Not much time, in one sense—two minutes at most—but long in another sense. Long enough for the demonstration to sink in. She puts the knife back in its holder and returns to her seat. The Jury Consultant also sits down.

  “I change my vote to guilty,” the Student says. “I feel like Amanda bought the mattock for one of her children. And David could’ve run. Should’ve run, if Amanda pulled a knife at all.”

  “Guilty,” the Foreperson says.

  “The so-called demonstration was meaningless,” the Housewife insists. “A farce. Besides, David didn’t have to run. He had the legal right to stand his ground. That’s what we were instructed.”

  I have to say this for her: she doesn’t back down. Sort of like my mom, but not.

  “David’s ability to run means he didn’t reasonably believe that deadly force was necessary to prevent imminent death to himself,” the Jury Consultant says.

  “You’re not making sense,” the Housewife says. “If he had an obligation to run, there wouldn’t be such a thing as the stand-your-ground defense.”

  That’s not a bad point. Not good enough to change my mind about the guilty verdict, though.

  “Anyway, the legal rule is irrelevant,” the Jury Consultant says. “Based on what we just learned about the archaeological tools, it’s clear that David had planned to murder Amanda for some time and was just waiting for his opportunity, and the self-defense and the battered-spouse story is just that: a story he concocted to cover up his crime. His opportunity came when Amanda bought the mattock, and he realized he could use her innocent purchase to set her up and claim he killed her because she attacked him.”

  “Let’s regroup,” the Foreperson says. “It’s five to two in favor of conviction, right?”

  “Six to one,” the Architect says, her voice barely audible.

  The Housewife winces as if she’s been stabbed with the knife. She leans close to the Architect and whispers something. The Architect turns her head away and lifts her eyes to the ceiling, like someone who wants to make another person disappear but can’t.

  “Did you just say, ‘We agreed?’” the Grandmother asks the Housewife.

  “I didn’t say anything,” the Housewife says indignantly.

  “With my poor hearing, I’ve learned to read lips,” the Grandmother says. “You definitely—”

  “What did you agree to?” the Foreperson asks. “Because if you two discussed this case before the end of trial or made a side deal, you broke the judge’s rules. As the foreperson, I’m going to make sure the judge hears about it.”

  “I didn’t say anything,” the Housewife says.

  The Architect folds her arms across her chest. “Nobody made any agreement. It’s only that you all have convinced me that David didn’t act in self-defense.”

  Did they really make a deal before the verdict? My mom said that’s what people do on juries, but I didn’t believe her. How gullible am I? This makes me kind of sad. Very sad. I respected the Housewife. Now I can’t.

  The Housewife gets out of her chair and takes a seat at the end of the table, as far away from the others as she can get without leaving the room—the seat the Clergyman occupied before he was kicked off the jury. What would he have said about all this? I know: nothing.

  JUROR NO. 1

  THE FOREPERSON

  I thought about doing a demonstration like the Jury Consultant did, but I didn’t want to take over. I’m the foreperson, and it’s my job to bring out the best in everyone, right? I am doing a good job as a foreperson, I think. No, I’m sure I am.

  If the Housewife would only get off her high horse, we could get out of here and put that murderer behind bars forever. Or for the rest of his life, anyway. If we reach a verdict, they’ll talk about this at the insurance agency tomorrow—if I decide to go back to work tomorrow. Maybe I’ll take the week off. I deserve time off, even though I need the money. On second thought, if I’m interviewed by the reporters today, I’ll go in to work first thing. No one likes to talk about old news.

  How about those mean girls, huh? So judgmental, and it turns out they’re the ones who broke the rules. I’d tell the judge if I had proof, but they’re liars, and they’ll deny they made an agreement between them. They made an agreement between them, no doubt.

  I stare hard at the Housewife. “You’re all alone. David Sullinger is guilty.”

  “This is a hung jury,” says the Housewife. “Let’s tell the judge we’re hopelessly deadlocked, and then we’ll all go home. Because I’m not changing my vote to convict an innocent man.”

  “I can’t believe your arrogance,” says the Architect. “The evidence isn’t the way we first saw it. I’m big enough to admit that and do the right thing. That’s what this process is about: doing the right thing, not winning.”

  The Housewife crosses her arms over her chest so hard that her plump boobs pillow up. “I’m the one who’s doing the right thing. I find people who cave in to peer pressure disgusting.”

  Whoa. Trouble in paradise between these two. I hate to admit it, but great!

  “You know, your husband, Jared, seems kind of abusive himself, from what you’ve told me,” says the Architect. “Like David Sullinger’s mini-me? Maybe you’re projecting and voting not guilty to justify your own husband’s behavior.”

  The Housewife freezes in surprise like a guy who’s just been kicked in the balls but hasn’t felt all the pain yet. The Architect just crossed the line. I’m not loving this conflict quite so much now, because it’s too mean. I’m not a mean person like them. It goes to show, friends can become the bitterest of enemies in the blink of an eye. Maybe it’s a good thing I don’t have many friends.

  “What a horrible thing to say,” says the Housewife, the color gone from every part of her face except for a red splotch under her left eye. “It’s not t
rue. Jared has never, ever …” She glances over at the knife on the credenza, as if she’s tempted to … She wouldn’t. Would she?

  “That’s definitely a rotten thing to say,” says the Jury Consultant to the Architect. “Especially to a friend.”

  “Are any of us friends?” the Architect asks. “Do our youngest and oldest jurors have a friendship anymore?”

  The Grandmother sniffles and crosses her arms, and the Student pushes her glasses up her nose twice.

  “I doubt any of us will be meeting for cocktails after this is all over, or chumming it up on weekends,” says the Architect. “No one calls me disgusting and gets away with it.”

  “That was wrong of her, but you attacked her family,” says the Grandmother. “I’ll overlook your attack on me. You don’t speak ill of a person’s family, whether that person is stranger, friend, or foe. Period.”

  “I’ll second that,” I say.

  “It’s true we’re not friends in here,” says the Express Messenger.

  “We should move on,” I say. “This is toxic.”

  The Express Messenger lifts his arm—a kind of peace offering—and I realize his eyes are glistening.

  “I won’t talk long. I know I have no friends in this room. I know you think I’m just a mama’s boy, a scuzzy truck driver who has delusions about being an actor. Fine. Maybe you’re right, maybe you’re wrong. We don’t have to like each other. A jury is supposed to be a cross section of the community, and that’s what we are. Maybe it’s better if we don’t like each other, because maybe that means we’re diverse like we’re supposed to be. I say let’s do the best we can to cooperate, so we can reach a just verdict.”

  Everyone is quiet. The Jury Consultant looks serious, but her eyes are smiling proudly at the Express Messenger.

  “Hear, hear,” I say.

  The Jury Consultant leans in to the Housewife. “I appreciate your strong convictions. We all do. We’re having an honest disagreement. Part of the process.”