In Self Defense by Susan Sloan (phonics books .TXT) 📕

He wanted to say something reassuring, but reading a jury was always the hardest part of the job he did.  You could think you picked the right ones only to have them jump up and bite you in the backside, just as easily as you could discover that ones you thought would never go your way had stepped up to champion your cause.  You just never knew what dynamic would surface when twelve strangers locked in a room had to get together and speak with one voice before they were allowed out.  In the end, it was anyone’s guess.

***

The spectators were packed in and restless, shifting around in their seats, murmuring to one another.

Mark Sundstrom and his assistant, Tom Colby, seemed to be brimming with nervous energy, fully anticipating a verdict in their favor.  The court clerk flitted anxiously from one busy work chore to another.  Even the jurors appeared to be on edge.  They entered the courtroom nervously, with tentative expressions on their faces, and they did not look at the defendant.

But none of them could be as unsettled as Clare, who alternated between wanting to laugh, and cry, and vomit.

The judge sat implacably on the bench.  This was her show and she was in no particular hurry to have it begin.  It was not until the hour hand on the wall clock clicked onto the four that she banged her gavel and called the court to order.

“I understand the jury has reached a verdict,” she said, more of a formality than a question.

“Yes, Your Honor, we have,” the foreman, a slight man in his fifties, said.  Clare thought she remembered David telling her the man was an electrical engineer.

Like a well-rehearsed play, the court clerk walked over and took the verdict form from the foreman and passed it up to the judge.  Naomi Lazarus opened the form, read the contents, and without a single muscle in her face revealing a hint of what it said, passed it back to the clerk who then returned it to the foreman.

“The foreman will read the verdict,” the judge instructed.

The courtroom held its collective breath.

The foreman pulled a pair of eyeglasses from his jacket pocket and peered at the verdict form.  “We the jury,” he read, “in the matter of the People versus Clare Durant, on the charge of murder in the first degree, find the defendant . . . not guilty.”

Everyone in the gallery started talking at once.

David felt his heart lurch in his stomach.

Mark Sundstrom shrugged his shoulders.

Clare was numb.  What did it mean, she wondered.  She didn’t know what it meant.

The judge banged her gavel for order.

“We the jury,” the foreman continued, “in the matter of the People versus Clare Durant, on the charge of murder in the second degree, find the defendant . . . not guilty.”

This time there was an audible gasp from the spectators, and then silence.  They knew there was only one charge remaining.  What they didn’t know was that it was the one the prosecution had not wanted to include from the beginning.

David held his breath.  Manslaughter was the charge he had worried most about, but he had fought to include it, if only because it would give the jury a viable option if they felt they needed it.

“We the jury, in the matter of the People versus Clare Durant, on the charge of manslaughter,” the foreman read, pausing to glance up at Clare before he continued, “find the defendant. . . not guilty.”

It didn’t matter which side anyone was on, there was pandemonium in the courtroom.

Mark Sundstrom sank back in his chair, dumbfounded.

David Johansen couldn’t believe his ears.

Clare appeared disoriented.

“What happened?” she asked her attorney.

“I really don’t know,” he told her honestly.  “But you’re going home.”

***

“In a remarkable turn of events,” the local anchors on the evening news broadcasts began, “Clare Durant, heiress to the medical giant Nicolaidis Industries, was acquitted of all charges today in connection with last year’s shooting death of her husband, Richard Durant, former CEO of the conglomerate.

“After four days of deliberations, it was generally assumed that the jury had reached a compromise verdict in this case that has had much of the city riveted for over a month.  But if there was any compromise, it wasn’t evident in the results.”

***

If the jurors were surprised by their instant notoriety, they managed to hide it well.  At least half of them were more than happy to step before the cameras as soon as the judge had dismissed them, and tell all about the trial and the verdict.  They stretched out their fifteen minutes of fame as long as they could.

“I felt she was innocent right from the start,” one of them said, “and I waited for the prosecution to prove otherwise.  They were doing a pretty decent job of it, too, until we found out about what her husband was trying to do to her.”

“You believed her husband was trying to kill her, did you?” a reporter asked.

“At the very least, I believe she believed it,” another juror said.

“I was on the fence most of the time during the trial,” admitted a third.  “I could see it going either way.  But after going back over everything and analyzing each piece of evidence, I’m pretty confident we ended up in the right place.”

Still another signed a book deal and even chose the title:  Why I Changed My Vote.  “Maybe what took me so long to come around was that I just wanted to believe she was guilty,” he said.

“If you’ve ever been on a jury,” a fifth told reporters, “you know it’s different from just about anything else.  It’s like a war, only without any real weapons, except words, of course, and you know one side is going to win eventually, but you don’t know which side it’s going to be.  So it goes back and forth until you just get worn down, or worn out.  We had two strong people in there,