We, the Jury

by Robert Rotstein

  “That’s what you jury consultants teach witnesses to do?” the Express Messenger asks.

  “Oh, my God, you’re just speculating that Lacey was trained by a jury consultant,” the Housewife says. “Anyway, it’s not evidence.”

  “Actually, I’m not speculating,” the Jury Consultant says. “She was trained by a competitor of mine, Jerome Marks from Chicago. He’s good. I know it was Jerry, because he was in the courtroom. Only twice—when David was testifying and when Lacey was testifying. The dark-haired man in the blue blazer, khaki pants, no tie, sitting in the third row behind the defense table? Did anyone else notice him?”

  No one else had.

  “Is that evidence?” the Housewife says. “That’s not evidence.”

  “Well, what if Dr. Phil had walked into the courtroom and sat in the third row?” the Jury Consultant asked. “Would you have noticed him?”

  “Dr. Phil the talk show guy?” the Express Messenger asks. “My mother loves him.”

  “I do not,” the Grandmother says.

  On this, the Grandmother and I agree. I do know where the Jury Consultant intends to go, however. Dr. Phil and I both went to school in Texas.

  “Phil McGraw was a jury consultant,” the Jury Consultant says. “He met Oprah Winfrey on a trial involving the beef industry.”

  “My mother loves Oprah, too,” the Express Messenger says.

  “Much better,” the Grandmother says.

  “What’s your point?” the Architect asks, sighing impatiently.

  “My point is that if a celebrity walked into the courtroom, you’d notice. You couldn’t put it out of your mind. I couldn’t help recognizing Jerry Marks. I’m not saying he did train her—only that he was there and that Lacey Sullinger was undoubtedly trained.

  “I still say, so what?” the Housewife says. “Trained or not, Lacey was a terrific, credible witness. No glitches.”

  “Not so,” the Jury Consultant replies. “The girl slipped up at least once. Remember when the prosecutor was hammering her on cross-examination about how she’d never complained to her friends or teachers about her mother’s supposed abuse? She glanced at Marks for help. The only glitch in a full day of testimony, but a telling one—a sure sign a witness thinks she’s going to be caught in a lie.” The Jury Consultant half smiles. “Poor Jerry wanted to crawl under his seat. I know how he felt. I’ve been there.”

  “I think this is inappropriate consideration of evidence that didn’t come in,” the Housewife says. This is felicitous—another accusation of juror impropriety, which further deflects attention from my infraction. “Anyway, none of this changes my mind about Lacey.” She leans in closer to the Jury Consultant. “No offense, but by making these points, you’re dissing your own profession. Anyway, I think all this stuff about verbal cues and demeanor is junk science. You either believe a person or you don’t. I listened to Lacey’s testimony, and she proved to me that her mother was a psychopath just waiting for an opportunity to murder David. So unless there’s some hard evidence that Lacey wasn’t credible—”

  “There is,” the Jury Consultant says. “The letter.”

  Ah, yes. The letter. Interesting. I had concluded that the letter worked to David Sullinger’s advantage by bolstering Lacey’s credibility as a sincere, devoted daughter who wanted to right a grave wrong done to her father. Perhaps I have missed something.

  CHRISTINA KELLEHER, CSR

  SUPERIOR COURT FOR THE COUNTY OF SEPULVEDA

  --------------------------------------------------------X

  PEOPLE

  v.

  DAVID BENNETT SULLINGER

  --------------------------------------------------------X

  JURY TRIAL—DAY 22

  Case No. 16-382

  BEFORE: Hon. Natalie Quinn-Gilbert, Superior Court Judge

  APPEARANCES:

  JOHN Y. CRANSTON, ESQ.Assistant District Attorney,

  Sepulveda County

  On behalf of the People

  JENNA MARIE BLAYLOCK, ESQ.

  On behalf of the Defendant

  TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS

  Reported by Christina Kelleher

  Certified Shorthand Reporter

  Cross-examination of David Sullinger by John Y. Cranston, attorney for the People (excerpt):

  Q. You were incarcerated in the Sepulveda County Jail for some months?

  A. [The witness nods.] It was horrible.

  Q. And during that time, you received a letter from your daughter, Lacey?

  A. Lacey wrote me a ton of letters. She’s supported me from the beginning of this nightmare. I owe my life to her.

  MR. CRANSTON: Your Honor, I’d like the clerk to mark as People’s Exhibit N a one-page letter from Lacey Sullinger to David Sullinger.

  MS. BLAYLOCK: Objection. Hearsay.

  MR. CRANSTON: Offered to show motive, Your Honor, not for the truth of the matter.

  THE COURT: Overruled. But keep your questions limited to that, counsel.

  Q. Mr. Sullinger, let me read to you a letter that your daughter sent to you while you were in jail, and, at the same time, project it on the screen for the jury.

  [Exhibit N projected on courtroom monitor]

  Hi Daddy,

  I miss you. I’m doing everything I can to get you out of there. I promise, and you know your little girl never breaks her promises no matter what. The lawyer says we’re making progress. No details, you never know who might be reading your mail. I’ll just say she’s confident. After that, I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure you don’t ever have to go back to that terrible place or anywhere like it. I’ll make sure you get back what belongs to you. We’ll finally be happy and free.

  See you very soon!

  Love,

  Lacey

  A. As I said, I owe everything to Lacey. For a kid her age, she was—

  Q. Wait until I ask a question, sir.

  A. I just—

  Q. Wait, sir.

  BLAYLOCK: I object to counsel’s attempt to—

  MR. CRANSTON: I’m only trying to ask my—

  THE COURT: Sit down, Ms. Blaylock. Mr. Sullinger, don’t talk until you’re asked a question. Did your daughter send you Exhibit N, Mr. Sullinger? Yes or no.

  A. Yes, she did, Your Honor.

  By Mr. Cranston:

  Q. And in this letter, Lacey wrote that the “lawyer says we’re making progress,” correct?

  A. Yes. Just like it says on the page.

  Q. By “the lawyer,” she meant Jenna Blaylock, didn’t she?

  A. Yes.

  Q. She’s a pretty expensive attorney, isn’t she?

  MS. BLAYLOCK: Objection.

  THE COURT: Sustained. Don’t do that again, Mr. Cranston.

  MR. CRANSTON: It goes to motive, Your Honor.

  THE COURT: Not the way you phrased it.

  Q. You didn’t have the money to pay a lawyer, did you?

  A. No. At first I was represented by the public defender.

  Q. And you didn’t have money to post bond.

  A. Correct. I was rotting in jail for something I didn’t do.

  Q. And you couldn’t use your wife’s money, could you?

  A. No, because of the false charges.

  Q. It’s called the slayer rule, isn’t it, Mr. Sullinger? The slayer of a person can’t inherit their money?

  A. I don’t know. I’m not a lawyer.

  Q. Then your daughter, Lacey, turned eighteen and gained control of Amanda’s assets?

  A. Yes.

  Q. And Lacey used that money to hire Ms. Blaylock and post bond.

  A. Yes, thankfully.

  Q. And if you’re acquitted, you stand to gain control of Amanda’s money.

  A. I told you. I’m not a lawyer.

  Q. I
sn’t that what Lacey meant when she wrote, “I’ll make sure you get back what belongs to you?”

  A. I wasn’t in Lacey’s head. But the way I read it was that I’ll get my life back. My dignity back. I don’t care about Amanda’s money. I never did. Jesus, when we first … when I first met her, she was a teacher.

  Q. A teacher who you stalked for years after?

  A. Absolutely not. That’s ridiculous.

  Q. Amanda’s mother is a liar?

  A. My mother-in-law … Let’s say, she’s never had a grip on reality when it comes to Amanda. She stood by and let Amanda abuse her grandchildren.

  MR. CRANSTON: Move to strike that last sentence as nonresponsive, Your Honor.

  THE COURT: Denied. You went there, counsel.

  MR. CRANSTON: Your Honor, I … May I have a moment to confer with my colleagues?

  THE COURT: Keep it brief.

  THE COURT: Mr. Cranston?

  MR. CRANSTON: Just another brief moment, Judge Quinn-Gilbert.

  THE COURT: Speed it up, Mr. Cranston.

  THE COURT: Do you need a recess, counsel? If not, I’ll infer that you’ve finished your cross-examination.

  MR. CRANSTON: No, sorry about the delay, Your Honor. Mr. Sullinger, let’s go back to the letter. You wrote… I mean Lacey wrote… never mind. Withdrawn. Uh, uh … Let’s move on to, uh, another subject. Did you …? On second thought, Your Honor, maybe we should take that recess now.

  THE COURT: Members of the jury, we’ll take a fifteen-minute recess. During this recess, I remind you not to discuss this case with anyone, including your fellow jurors.

  JUROR NO. 33

  THE GRANDMOTHER

  I’ve always been an irascible woman—my mother claimed that I was an irascible child—but I’m particularly grumpy this morning. The reason is no mystery. Last night, my husband’s waltz—a brief, tantalizing dream of normality—transformed back into the nightmare that has become our reality. He didn’t want to stop dancing after thirty minutes, didn’t understand or care that my hip was aching. He became agitated and then hostile when I insisted that I had to stop. When Ligaya intervened, he shoved her so hard she fell to the ground and sprained her wrist. She quit, the poor girl. Quit right on the spot. I don’t blame her one bit. Only my tears and a call to the doctor for an increase in my husband’s medication got her to agree to stay until the agency finds a replacement.

  Thank God for the long-term-care insurance I forced him to get. Oh, how he resisted, and what a row we had over it. Things weren’t going well between us at the time, and he accused me of wanting him to get sick. But he eventually did what I wanted when I invited that insurance broker over—a very nice, very pushy gay man who gave my husband just the right push by reminding him that men get sick and die earlier than women and that a husband has a duty to provide for his wife. Implied it’s unmanly not to. This happened so long ago, I don’t even recall the man’s name—Alan or Edward or something? He was at least ten years older than my husband. He’s probably gone by now.

  In any case, I’m grumpy. I thought these deliberations would be over this morning, and that’s not happening. We’re talking about the short note that Lacey Sullinger wrote to her father when he was in jail, and that makes me grumpier, because I wanted to hear more about it at trial, and the prosecutor Cranston bollixed up the whole cross-examination. At least, the heater is off and I can hear what the others are saying.

  “We heard tons about that letter during the prosecutor’s closing argument,” the Housewife says. “It doesn’t change anything.”

  “Not much about it during cross-examination,” I say. “Thanks to Mr. Cranston’s blunders.”

  The Student nods in agreement, nods a little too long for my taste. I like the girl very much, but now I wonder if she’s patronizing me because I’m an old woman. Or, how do I explain it? Maybe she’s grabbing on to the hem of my skirt because she’s afraid to stand on her own two feet. Kids today are so dependent.

  “The David-killed-Amanda-for-her-money theory?” the Housewife says to the Jury Consultant. She lets out a verbal scoff, a kind of half sigh, half snort. “Ridiculous. David and Amanda were in a violent confrontation that had nothing to do with money. It was the forgotten anniversary and the name calling and the accusations of adultery with her best friend; it was … she accused him of sleeping with her best friend. The letter says nothing about David wanting money. He didn’t want money. On top of that, as Lacey so perceptively noted, this is a community-property state. Half of it was his, frozen or not.”

  I lean in close to comprehend, and at the same time the Housewife leans back, breathing heavily, borderline hyperventilation. In my days as a teacher, I taught quite a few students for whom a discussion wasn’t about communicating but about winning. The trait was particularly prominent in the bright, unpopular, awkward children who were desperate for a moment in the limelight. Little did they realize that their insistence on forcing themselves front and center alienated the very people they wanted to impress.

  “It’s not about the money,” the Jury Consultant says in a soft voice. What a patient woman she is. She stands, walks over to the credenza, riffles through the evidence binder, and retrieves the document, then reads the letter to us and passes it around.

  “I think it’s important that we all look at the letter again,” she says. “Study the words, the handwriting.”

  Hi Daddy,

  I miss you. I’m doing everything I can to get you out of there. I promise, and you know your little girl never breaks her promises no matter what. The lawyer says we’re making progress. No details, you never know who might be reading your mail. I’ll just say she’s confident. After that, I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure you don’t ever have to go back to that terrible place or anywhere like it. I’ll make sure you get back what belongs to you. We’ll finally be happy and free.

  See you very soon!

  Love,

  Lacey

  “The letter proves that Lacey is a devoted daughter who loves her father,” the Housewife says. “You’re implying that he was a duplicitous murderer, a monster. She wouldn’t love a monster.”

  There are nods of agreement from some of the others, but not from me. The Student starts to follow suit, glances sidelong at me, and stops midnod. Annoying.

  “People love monsters all the time,” the Jury Consultant says to the Housewife. “David testified he still loves Amanda, and you seem to believe that she was a monster.”

  “Apples and oranges,” the Housewife says. “David is the classic battered spouse—codependent on his abuser, according to the defense expert.”

  “Unless Lacey was abused by David and has an unnatural affection for her abuser,” the Jury Consultant says. “That’s the problem with the apples-and-oranges cliché: they’re still both fruit.”

  “I’m not sure what that means,” the Housewife says.

  “Both sides had psychologists,” the Student says. “Who are we supposed to believe?”

  “The defense psychologist was better qualified,” the Housewife says.

  “Also expensive as hell,” the Express Messenger says. “Kind of a whore, if you ask me.”

  “No one asked you,” I snap. “And there you go again with that mouth.”

  “Yes, no profanity in the jury room,” the Foreperson says.

  “‘Whore’ is not profanity,” the Express Messenger says like an argumentative teenager. “‘Whore’ is in the dictionary. But okay. The defense expert is kind of a prostitute.” The kid was a smart aleck in high school, and he’s a smart aleck now. Look where it’s gotten him.

  “Could we get back to the letter and talk about the psychologists later if we need to?” the Foreperson asks. Most of the time, the woman follows the deliberations like a kitten trying to capture a moving beam of light—just a bit behind and always ready to pounce.

 
“The important thing about this letter,” the Jury Consultant says, “is that Lacey promised she’d get David back home, and swore she wouldn’t break her promise. She made it her business to add the words ‘no matter what.’”

  “I see your point,” I say. “Why didn’t the prosecution bring that out?”

  We sit in fraught silence, as if we’re trying to figure this out, though we all know the answer. Leave it to the Express Messenger, who says, “It’s because Cranston sucks hind tit as a lawyer.”

  Now we sit in embarrassed silence.

  “Stop it,” the Student says. “Just stop it.”

  “Yeah, just stop it,” the Foreperson says.

  The Express Messenger points his thumbs to his shoulders, lets his jaw go slack, and gapes at us with a What? Who, me? look.

  “Does anyone else find it creepy that Lacey, a grown woman, calls her father ‘Daddy,’ and herself his ‘little girl’?” the Foreperson asks.

  “Not me,” the Student says. “I call my father ‘Daddy.’ A lot of girls my age call their fathers that.”

  “Creepy,” the Foreperson says, at which point the Student looks down at the table. “And look at that handwriting. It’s like she’s writing a love letter or something. Cranston didn’t bring that out, either.”

  “Oh, he tried, but the judge shut him down,” the Jury Consultant says. She’s being cryptic and civil, but I know what she’s getting at: the incest thing. I don’t like to think such thoughts. It’s hard to explain, but when my husband bought my daughter that new car for her sixteenth birthday, the way they were so close, made me wonder … It was absurd, of course—the bizarre, perverse fantasies of a frustrated wife. He would never, and David and Lacey, well … The thought of that topic makes me want to gag. I’m glad the judge didn’t let that testimony in.

  “Well, I read the letter the way the defense attorney does,” the Housewife says. “A touching note from a supportive, loving daughter to a father who’s been wrongly accused. It’s disgusting to characterize this letter as evidence of some kind of twisted relationship between David and Lacey. Cranston tried to go there, and the judge shut him down. And it’s inappropriate for anyone to bring it up here.”