Mark Gimenez - The Color of Law

A lawyer learns with his first jury trial that the case is won or lost during jury selection. Today, with enough money, you can legally fix a jury. But since neither Scott nor his client had enough money to hire a jury expert, there was no paid consultant sitting next to Scott, only Bobby.

So Scott said to the men and women before him, “I’m nervous, about this. I’ve never represented a person accused of murder. Are you nervous, too?”

Heads started nodding.

“Well, rather than me asking you a lot of questions, maybe we’ll just visit for a while. Forget what we’re here for, forget you might be jurors, forget we’re lawyers-as you might have read, my former law firm’s been trying to forget I’m a lawyer.”

A few chuckles from the jury box, which gave Scott an idea.

“What’s the difference between a rattlesnake lying dead in the middle of a highway and a lawyer lying dead in the middle of a highway?”

A female juror: “Skid marks in front of the snake.”

The jurors laughed.

“You know why New Jersey got all the toxic waste dumps and California got all the lawyers?”

A male juror: “New Jersey got first choice.”

Louder laughter from the jury box.

“What do lawyers and sperm have in common?”

A male juror: “They both have a one-in-a-million chance of turning out human.”

Raucous laughter.

The same juror: “How do you know when a lawyer is lying?”

An old lady: “His lips are moving.”

Another: “A lawyer is a liar with a permit to practice.”

And another: “If an IRS agent and a lawyer were both drowning and you could save only one, would you read the paper or go to lunch?”

Scott finally interrupted the revelry.

“Hey, I went to law school. I get to tell the jokes.”

The jurors’ laughter died down, but their smiles remained.

“I take it you people don’t care for lawyers?”

All twenty-nine heads shook emphatically.

“You hate lawyers?”

All heads nodded emphatically.

“Why?”

An older man: “Because lawyers don’t know the difference between the truth and winning an argument.”

An older woman: “Because lawyers think being clever is the same as being smart.”

A young woman: “Because a lawyer will tell you the sky is green if that’ll help his case.”

A young man: “Because lawyers are greedy.”

Bobby: “Yeah, and they’re-”

“Bobby!”

Scott turned to the jurors. “And he’s a lawyer!”

The jurors were chuckling again.

Ray Burns stood. “Your Honor, if Mr. Fenney is through with his stand-up comedy act, perhaps we could-”

“Sit, Mr. Burns,” the judge said.

Ray Burns sat. Scott addressed the prospective jurors.

“Okay, I think we’ve established that all of you hate lawyers. And that’s okay. We deserve it. But my client doesn’t. You can hate me because I’m a lawyer, but don’t hate her because you hate her lawyer. Her life is in your hands. Give her a fair shake. Can you all agree to that?”

The smiles were gone, replaced by sober expressions. Every single juror nodded.

“All right, now I need to ask you a few questions. First, have any of you participated in voir dire before?”

One young man with a nose ring raised his hand and asked, “Is that like when there’s four?”

“Four what?”

“Four people. You know, like menage a trois plus one.”

From behind, Judge Buford’s weary voice: “You’re excused.”

The man rose, shrugged, and shuffled out of the courtroom.

Scott said, “Any of you not heard about this case?”

No one raised a hand.

“All right. My client is a prostitute and a heroin addict. You all know that, right?”

Their heads nodded.

“Again, I ask only one thing of you: Don’t prejudge her. Don’t assume. You don’t know what another person’s life is like until you’ve walked around in her shoes awhile. Ms. Jones is not here today because she’s ill. She’s suffering withdrawal sickness. How many of you smoke?”

Eight jurors raised their hands.

“Imagine if you had to quit cold turkey.”

They nodded.

“Have any of you ever retained a prostitute?”

No hands were raised, but one man glanced around.

“Sir?”

“I ain’t never retained a hooker, but I had sex with one.”

The judge: “You’re excused.”

Scott thumbed through the jurors’ questionnaires and stopped at one completed by a high school football coach. Most football coaches considered themselves smarter than the general population because they understood the definition of pass interference. But one other predisposition of football coaches gave him pause. So he turned to juror number 28 and said, “Coach, who’s the greatest running back ever produced by the State of Texas?”

Without blinking, the coach asked, “Negro or white?”

The judge: “You’re excused.”

After the coach had left, Scott turned to another juror, an older man whose sunburned face told Scott he worked outdoors.

“Sir, in response to question number eleven asking how far did you go in school, you answered twelve miles.”

“Yes, sir, we lived in the country, so that’s how far we had to go.”

“Uh, well, the question means, you know, what was the highest grade level you attained?”

The man seemed genuinely embarrassed. “Oh, hell, I’m sorry. I made a B once.”

The judge: “You’re excused.”

Scott now turned to an older woman clutching a big purse in her lap and wearing a worried expression.

“Ma’am?” She looked up. “Ma’am, is there anything that would interfere with your serving on this jury?”

“Will I be home in time for Oprah?”

The judge: “You’re excused.”

On the drive home, Bobby said, “Will I be home in time for Oprah? That was a good one.”

Scott had struck seven prospective jurors and Ray Burns nine. The twelve jurors who would determine whether Shawanda Jones would live or die had been selected and seated for the trial that would start on Monday: there were seven men and five women; six were white, four were black, and two were Hispanic; there was a teacher, a nurse, a carpenter, a dental assistant, a car salesman, two housewives, a mechanic, a junior college professor, a contractor, a bartender, and a grocery store clerk.

Scott said to Bobby, “Do you trust Karen?”

“Yeah, why?”

“I’m worried Dan Ford planted her.”

“You mean as a spy?”

“Yeah, to learn our strategy.”

“What strategy? Prayer? ” Bobby smiled. “Don’t worry, Scotty, she’s not a spy.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Remember a few weeks ago, in the pool, I said I’d probably never have sex again?”

“Yeah.”

“I was wrong.”

“You mean…?”

“Yeah. And no girl would have sex with me just for money. Believe me, I know.”

Money could not make the rape go away. The physical pain was gone, but the mental pain would never leave Hannah Steele.

It was a beautiful afternoon in Galveston. The sun was warm, but the sea breeze was cool against her skin. Hannah was strolling down the seawall, seventeen feet above the beach. To her left, across the boulevard, were restaurants, bars, gift shops, and beachfront condos and hotels; to her right was the sandy beach and beyond that the Gulf of Mexico, a body of brown water whose swells rolled ashore and broke into small waves that died in the sand around the feet of kids wading at the water’s edge. Their parents were sitting in chairs under colorful umbrellas that dotted the beach in both directions as far as Hannah could see. Other kids were building sand castles or hunting for seashells, and a few surfers were trying to find waves strong enough to provide a ride, but without much luck.