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“It is frightening to think that a promising young man’s life can be ruined by a baseless accusation. With no evidence,” he sighed. “I guess that’s the world we live in today. A world where accusations sway opinion. A world where evidence doesn’t matter. A world where a person is deemed guilty without any proof.
“Scott’s dad, Greg Blair, had his own Olympic swimming career cut short due to a shoulder injury when he was just twenty. He told me yesterday that the devastation he felt when he had to pull out of the Olympics was nothing compared to the day he saw his son hauled by police out of an Olympic swimming pool while training for the national titles. It was done in full view of media cameras to humiliate Scott. To give the false impression he was guilty.
“Scott’s hands were cuffed behind his back. He was frog-marched by police out of the pool in a dripping-wet Speedo and shoved into a police car while news cameras photographed him.The mob decided Scott was guilty without a shred of evidence. Not a shred.
“You the jury have the chance to rectify that terrible wrong that has been done to Scott, because Scott did not rape or sexually assault Kelly Moore. The prosecutor, Mr. Alkins, won’t be able to give you evidence, let alone evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, for the simple reason that none exists. Scott here, well, he did not commit these crimes. He is innocent.” Quinn paused to let the words sink in.
“There was no rape. No sexual assault. That’s just not true,” Quinn continued. “What did happen was that Scott and the complainant had consensual sex and the complainant regretted it afterward. Sure, Scott acted like a cad after their tryst by boasting about it to his friends. He was only eighteen at the time. Boys can be immature. To cover up for her embarrassment, the complainant claimed that what happened was against her will. It wasn’t,” Quinn said. “She was a willing participant. That’s why there is no evidence to prove her story. Scott is innocent of all charges.”
Rachel could tell that Quinn had gotten through to some of the jurors. It helped, too, that Scott Blair had sat contritely throughout his lawyer’s address with the slumped shoulders and shocked expression of the wrongly accused. His puzzled blue eyes matched the baby blue of his V-neck sweater. A couple of the jurors nodded to themselves as Quinn returned to the defense table, pausing to squeeze Scott’s shoulder reassuringly as his final words reverberated through the courtroom.
Quinn had sowed a kernel of doubt in the hearts of the jurors. Rachel expected that he’d cultivate that kernel through the trial until, by the time the jury went into deliberations, that kernel would have grown big enough for at least some of the jurors tofight for Scott in the jury room. All it took was one juror to get a hung jury, thought Rachel. Just one.
When the jury filed out for the lunch recess, some of the jurors seemed weighed down by the enormity of the task, discerning a needle of truth in a haystack of subterfuge and legal doublespeak. Rachel didn’t envy them one bit.
24
Guilty or Not Guilty
Season 3, Episode 6: Jury Duty
About six years ago, I was called for jury duty. It was not long after my marriage broke up. The divorce papers had been filed, but we were still unpicking the Gordian knot of our lives together.
It wasn’t so much about who got what. We were both flat broke. But who would keep Millie, our King Charles spaniel? How we would divide up the wedding presents? And who’d take over the loan on the car? And the apartment lease? Not to mention arranging a payment schedule for paying off our credit card debt.
My family was furious with me. They loved my ex. Still do. Mom invites him for Thanksgiving every year. Me she can take or leave. But Ted, he gets to sit at the head of the table and the menu is carefully planned with all his food preferences in mind.
Anyway, I had this awful job working the graveyard shift in a newsroom in the months after the breakup. I was permanently jet-lagged. Sleeping during the day. Working at night. If you’ve ever done that kind of job, you’ll know that after a while it grinds you into dust.
Then the letter arrived. Summoning me for jury duty. Some people will do anything to get out of jury duty. You wouldn’t believe the stories they’ll tell. I heard the wildest things the day I turned up at the courthouse for jury selection. One guy said he had a back condition that precluded sitting for long periods of time. Another said she had claustrophobia and would get panic attacks if she was locked in a small room. The really smart ones simply said they were not capable of being objective.
Me, I was excited. I wanted myTwelve Angry Menmoment. I wanted to play armchair detective. To sway fellow jurors with my righteous indignation. Yup, as you can gather, I had no idea what I was getting myself in for.
I sat with the other potential jurors in a crowded room drinking cheap coffee in Styrofoam cups, hunched over our phones while waiting to go through the voir dire, which is the fancy Latin name for selecting a jury.
There was a unanimous groan when we were told that it was a financial crimes trial and not a murder case. “Fraud,” someone said with distaste. “I got fraud last time,” another potential juror complained. “What does it take to get murder?”
Whether murder or fraud, the fact was that for most of the jury pool, getting called for jury duty was a major pain in the ass. Most of them were hardworking people, juggling kids and minimum-wage jobs. Few of them were college educated. Most were struggling to get by. They needed jury duty like they needed a hole in their heads.
Eventually it was my turn to be grilled by the lawyers. I didn’t last long. The second the defense attorney heard I had two college degrees, he used a preemptory challenge to have me dismissed. He did the same for other college-educated potential jurors until he’d whittled down the jurors to those with little more than a high school education.
I left court that day with the feeling that the jury system was beinggamed. That it’s all psychological manipulations and obfuscations. That it’s about winning. And losing. A game of wits and ego. That it has nothing to do with law, let alone order. Guilt, or innocence. Justice. Or truth.
That feeling was reinforced when, out of curiosity, I watched the trial for a couple of days when it was in full swing. I sat in the public gallery and listened to a befuddling array of evidence and witness testimony that I could barely follow. The jurors looked as if they were suffering from a form of death by a thousand cuts as they listened to the dry-as-dust testimony of a forensic accountant breaking down the details of one forged receipt after the next.
I left court with the impression that particular financial fraud case was so complex that even my brother, a financial accountant, would have had trouble keeping up with the complexities of the case. Let alone a jury of ordinary people without much exposure to the intricacies of the financial world.
It didn’t surprise me when I heard the jury had found the defendant guilty in record time. Anything to get out of there and go back to their lives.
The theatrics from Mitch Alkins and Dale Quinn underscored that impression today in court on the first day of the trial. They tried every trick in the book to get the jury’s sympathy. And quite a few tricks that aren’t in any books. Yet.
They were good. Among the best. They modulated their voices to the right pitch. Their pauses were perfectly timed. Their hand gestures were choreographed to perfection. The wily way they selected facts to suit their arguments while undermining any suggestion they might be wrong. They played each juror. They played their emotions, and they played their perception of the case. They vied for the sympathy of each and every juror.
To be fair, maybe, I’m underestimating the jury. Maybe the jurors in the Blair trial will ignore the theatrics and focus on piecing together the granules of truth that will come out during the trial until they havea big enough picture to reach a fair verdict. I hope that happens. That’s what they’re there for after all.
There are thirteen jurors. That includes one alternate juror who has to listen to the evidence and testimony but will almost certainly not be allowed to deliberate. Not unless one of the other jurors drops out or is kicked out for breaking one of Judge Shaw’s rules. Such as listening to my podcast or following other media coverage of the case.
There are seven men on the jury. Six women. All but three of the jurors are over the age of forty. Word is that such a composition favors the defense. Older women are said to be more judgmental of rape victims. The oldest jurors are in their late sixties. The youngest juror is in his mid-twenties. He is expected to be partial to the defense as well because he’s a guy and the same approximate age as the defendant. That makes them kindred spirits, so the theory goes. In reality, who knows?
