Unknown - The_Growing_589064

A heartbeat that would allow her to go back to being a scientist, not a political figure.

Or, more aptly, a figurehead. A figurehead with life and death in her hand, and no way to open her fingers and cast herself free of them.

Finally Harcourt sits, and the rest of the room follows suit. The crowd remains silent as he opens the folder in front of him and studies it briefly. Then he closes it and folds his hands on its cover. Pitching his voice so that it carries to every corner of the high-ceilinged room, he says, “Ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank you for coming here today despite what must be considerable hardship for some of you. I commend you on your sense of duty even in the present crisis and for your willingness to undertake perhaps the most solemn responsibility of a citizen of this state and this nation. You are here to administer justice. Justice under the law.”

He glances around the room. “The circumstances are extraordinary. For one, this court is of necessity a hybrid of military and civilian practice, even though the defendants are civilians and no state of war has been formally declared by the Congress of the United States. So, even though you will see both the defense counsel and the prosecutor in the uniform of their service, the charges laid against these defendants are those allowable in the criminal law of the State of South Dakota. They are not federal charges. They are not war crimes, even though it seems, in logic, that they should be.

“You will be asked, if you are chosen for this jury, to sift a body of evidence that you will find disturbing in the extreme. And you will be asked to render a verdict, bearing in mind that men’s lives will be in your hands, on that basis of that evidence alone. In a moment, the Clerk of the Court will ask for exemptions, which may be granted for several reasons under the law of this state. If you have formed an opinion on any of these cases, or if you do not believe you are capable of rendering a just and true verdict, you will have an opportunity to inform the Court at that time. Madame Clerk.”

The Clerk, a trim redhead with Sergeant’s stripes on her sleeve, begins to read out the list of persons exempt from jury service. Kirsten leans slightly toward Maggie and whispers, “My God, he really is a classic, isn’t he?”

“He almost makes me believe in reincarnation,” Maggie answers sotto voce. “He’d be right at home in a toga, stabbing Caesar in the gut for the good of the Republic.”

A sharp glance from the bench quiets them both as the Clerk drones on, “. . .Persons over sixty-five years of age . . . full time student . . . care of children under six . . . minister of religion . . . .persons unable to read and write the English language. . . .”

Surprisingly few members of the pool choose to opt out. One young woman with an infant in arms sounds almost disappointed that she can find no one else to care for her baby; a young man with watery eyes and a bad cough is hustled out before he can make a gift of his cold to anyone else. Kirsten steals a glance at the defendants where they sit at the table across the room. The four of them are to be tried together, and they provide a study in contrasts. One, Kazen, seems scarcely out of his teens, his eyes wide with obvious fear. McCallum sprawls in his chair; Buxton slumps in his. The fourth, Petrovich, stares at something in the corner of the ceiling which apparently only he can see. Shackles, unobtrusive, clink each time one of them moves. The chains are not where the jury can see them, but any escape attempt will have to drag the defense table along with it.

Half-hidden behind piles of briefs, Boudreaux’s own face is as pale as his clients’. A fine shimmer of wet at his receding hairline betrays his nerves. He is not a defense lawyer by trade, and despite his uniform, not a lawyer. The responsibility for others’ life and death sits no easier on him than it does on Kirsten herself, and it seems to her that his is the one job even less appealing than her own. He must save these thugs’ lives if he can, and he must save them knowing that if they are found innocent they must be released. Knowing that they have been spared the firing squad only to be handed a more subtle death sentence, and a more brutal one, at the hands of their victims.

“Are counsel prepared to proceed with the voire dire?” Harcourt asks after the exemptions have been dealt with. ‘Major Alderson?”

Major Alderson, appointed prosecutor because of his experience as a paralegal and two years as a Senate aide in Washington, rises and turns to face the public benches. He runs rapidly through the standard questions, hardly pausing when he asks whether the prospective jurors have every been victims of a crime, and every hand in the room goes up. Finally he comes to the end. “Are you able, in the event of a guilty verdict, to assess the death sentence against these defendants? Raise your hand if you do not believe you can do so, please.”

“Boudreaux surges to his feet. “Objection, Your Honor! Rape is not a capital crime in the State of South Dakota.”

“Major Alderson?” Harcourt’s voice is deceptively mild as he taps the manila folder in front of him. “You wrote these charges, did you not? I do not believe I recall any assertion of murder among them.”

Alderson turns to face the bench. “May it please the court, Your Honor. It’s true that these defendants are not directly charged with murder. However, testimony from victims shows that women held in the Rapid City corrections facility were killed, and testimony to be offered here will show that these four men co-operated with the killers. They partake of the crime under the law of parties, Your Honor.”

“Even though the killers were androids and not persons under the law? We would not try an android for a crime, Major. We would simply turn it off, you know, or send it to the scapyard.”

“Even so, Your Honor. That the perpetrators were androids does not change the nature of the crime, or the nature of these defendants’ participation.”

Kirsten spares a glance at Maggie, whose lips twitch in a scarcely suppressed smile. “He’s good,” she mouths, not wanting to draw Harcourt’s attention again, and Maggie nods almost imperceptibly.

“Nothing like a few years negotiating budgets on the Hill each you to argue.”

“Very well,” Harcourt says after a moment’s thought. “I will allow you to proceed along these lines, Counsel, and develop your case if you can. But I will charge the jury as I see fit when the time comes. Understood?”

“Understood, Your Honor.”

Alderson puts the question to the jury pool again, briefly explaining that the law of parties is designed to prevent accomplices from escaping on lesser charges than a killer who pulls the trigger or wields the knife himself. “And the evidence will show, ladies and gentlemen, that these four men”—he points to them as he numbers them off: “Kazen, McCallum, Buxton, Petrovich—bought their own lives at the price of the degradation and suffering of dozens of innocent women. Though I use the term advisedly. Some of their victims were no more than twelve or thirteen.”

A hissing snakes its way through the courtroom, and Harcourt brings his gavel down hard. “Ladies and gentlemen, I caution you now that I will not tolerate emotional displays in this courtroom.” The sound subsides abruptly, and Harcourt lays the gavel down again. “Major Boudreax, if you please.”

Boudreaux rises and faces the jury pool. Peering over her shoulder, Kirsten can see that many faces are openly hostile. His opening remarks are conciliatory, designed to overcome as much of that feeling as he can. “Ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank you for coming here today. I know it has been very difficult for all of you, but I also know that you take your duties as citizens seriously. I helped to take the census in Rapid City, and saw there how much you love your country and how eager you are for the rule of law to be reestablished.