—
WHEN WE SAY,in America, that you have a right to be tried by a jury of your peers, we’re not exactly telling the truth. The pool of jurors is not as random as you’d think, thanks to careful scrutiny by the defense and the prosecution to eliminate both ends of the bell curve—the people most likely to vote against our clients’ best interests. We weed out the folks who believe that people are guilty until proven innocent, or who tell us they see dead people, or who hold grudges against the legal system because they were once arrested. But we also prune on a case-by-case basis. If my client is a draft dodger, I try to limit jurors who have proudly served. If my client is a drug addict, I don’t want a juror who lost a family member to an overdose. Everyone has prejudices. It’s my job to make sure that they work in favor of the person I’m representing.
So although I would never play the race card once the trial starts—as I’ve spent months explaining to Ruth—I’m damn well going to stack the odds before it begins.
Which is why, before we begin voir dire to choose jurors, I march into my boss’s office and tell him I was wrong. “I’m feeling a little overwhelmed after all,” I say to Harry. “I was thinking I might need a cochair.”
He takes a lollipop out of a jar he keeps on his desk. “Ed’s got a shaken-baby trial starting this week—”
“I wasn’t talking about Ed. I was thinking of Howard.”
“Howard.” He looks at me, baffled. “The kid who still brings his meals in a lunchbox?”
It’s true that Howard is fresh out of law school and that so far, in the few months he’s been at the office, has only done misdemeanors—domestics and a few disorderlies. I offer my smoothest grin. “Yeah. You know, he’ll just be an extra pair of hands for me. A runner. And in the meantime, it would be good for him to get trial experience.”
Harry unwraps the lollipop and sticks it in his mouth. “Whatever,” he says, his teeth gripped on the stem.
With his blessing, or the closest I’m going to get to one, I head back to my cubicle and poke my head over the divider that separates me from Howard. “Guess what,” I tell him. “You’re going to second-chair the Jefferson case. Voir dire’s this week.”
He glances up. “Wait. What? Really?”
It’s a big deal for a rookie who is still doing scut work in the office. “We’re leaving,” I announce, and I grab my coat, knowing he will follow.
I do need an extra pair of hands.
I also need them to be black.
—
HOWARD SCRAMBLES ATmy side as we walk through the halls of the courthouse. “You don’t speak to the judge unless I’ve told you to,” I instruct. “Don’t show any emotions, no matter what theatrical display Odette Lawton puts on—prosecutors do that to make themselves feel like they’re Gregory Peck inMockingbird.”
“Who?”
“God. Never mind.” I glance at him. “How old are you, anyway?”
“Twenty-four.”
“I have sweaters older than you,” I mutter. “I’ll give you the discovery to read over tonight. This afternoon I’m going to need you to do some fieldwork.”
“Fieldwork?”
“Yeah, you have a car, right?”
He nods.
“And then, once we actually get the jurors inside, you’re going to be my human video camera. You’re going to record every tic and twitch and comment that each potential juror makes in response to my questions, so that we can go over it and figure out which candidates are going to fuck us over. It’s not about who’sonthe jury…it’s about who’snoton it. Do you have any questions?”
Howard hesitates. “Is it true that you once offered Judge Thunder a blow job?”
I stop walking and face him, my hands on my hips. “You don’t even know how to clean out the coffee machine yet, but you knowthat?”
Howard pushes his glasses up his nose. “I plead the Fifth.”
“Well, whatever you heard, it was taken out of context and it was prednisone-induced. Now shut up and look older than twelve, for God’s sake.” I push open the door to Judge Thunder’s chambers to find him sitting behind his desk, with the prosecutor already in the room. “Your Honor. Hello.”
He glances at Howard. “Who’s this?”
“My co-counsel,” I reply.
