by Noel Obiora
“Why don’t we ask them what they feel they can achieve with more time. And if their response is encouraging, we’ll give them until the middle of next week,” Judge Barney said.
“That will be agreeable to the People,” Amy joined quickly. Kenneth looked at Cassandra, who shrugged her shoulders.
“We will go along with that as well,” Kenneth informed the court.
“Let’s get the jurors in here, then,” Judge Barney directed the clerk. As the jurors walked to their box, their foreman stood aside as each took a seat in the chair assigned on the first day of trial.
After the jurors were seated, Judge Barney asked their foreman to stand again. “Without telling us how each side is inclined to vote on the verdict, Mr. Foreman, can you tell us how many jurors you have on each side of your deadlock?”
“Yes, your Honor,” the foreman said. “We are eleven and one.”
Several people in the gallery gasped. Judge Barney locked his eyes on Kenneth.
“Very well,” said Judge Barney. “I have discussed the situation with counsel and we would like you to go back and see what you can do further. This was not an easy trial. There was a lot of evidence and maybe more time would do you good. And perhaps, if you have this weekend to rest, you may come back refreshed with a different perspective on your prior positions.”
“Your Honor,” the jury foreman began, “I don’t see how that’s possible. We’ve looked at all the evidence in this case, twice. We’ve gone over the testimony. Everyone took really good notes. Everyone remembers what they were doing when anything was said in the trial. We know the issues. We were born with them. This jury is permanently deadlocked.”
As he spoke, some jurors nodded their heads.
“Nevertheless, I will send you back to continue your deliberations, and we will see where you are at the end of the day,” Judge Barney said.
“Thank you, your Honor,” the foreman said, and led the jurors back to the room to continue their deliberation.
“Let’s reconvene at four p.m.,” Judge Barney said to the rest of the courtroom.
Almost immediately, Paul’s family crowded Kenneth and Cassandra in the courtroom. Paul was speechless as the sheriff led him away.
“How did you know the jury was lopsided, Ken,” Jo asked.
“When the judge started to sound like he was doing us a favor by calling a quick mistrial if the deadlock was lopsided, I thought he suspected that most of the jurors were leaning toward us.”
Paul’s mother began to cry. That was when Kenneth noticed that Nancy was not standing with them. He looked outside the huddle surrounding him and noticed Nancy just leaving Amy a little further down the hallway.
“So, you think the eleven are for Paul?” Sister Ramatu asked through her tears.
“We could be wrong,” Cassandra said. Jo also began to cry. Cassandra and Kenneth tried to comfort them, but Nancy returned and told them it was perfectly all right to cry, to let it all out. She cried with them.
•••
At 4:45 p.m., Judge Barney’s courtroom in the criminal courts building was as full as it was on the first day of trial. The jurors were seated, Amy and Kate were at their table with Gonzalez. Kenneth and Cassandra sat at defense table waiting for Paul to arrive. Paul’s family, including his father, sat together in the gallery behind the lawyers. Big sat at the far back. Everyone from the district attorney’s office who was in court after lunch had returned.
The room was silent and cold. The court staff spoke in hushed tones. Jurors did their best to avoid making eye contact with anyone.
The sheriff led Paul Jackson into the courtroom and sat him between Kenneth and Cassandra. Then Judge Barney entered, indicating that everyone should remain seated. He directed the foreman to stand again.
“Have you reached a verdict?” Judge Barney asked.
“No, your Honor,” the foreman answered.
“Are you unable to reach a verdict?” Judge Barney asked.
“Yes, your Honor,” the foreman answered.
“Now, given that this trial was fairly involved, and the evidence large for the short time in which it was tried, do you find that additional time would help some amongst you in reaching a verdict?”
“No, your Honor.”
“How are you divided?”
“Eleven to one,” the foreman said.
There were several sighs in the courtroom. Judge Barney turned to the court to make the announcement everyone expected.
“I hereby declare a mistrial in the case of The People of California v. Paul Jackson. I find the jury has worked hard and carried this responsibility entrusted upon them with utmost dignity. Does either counsel wish the jury polled?” Judge Barney asked.
“Yes, your Honor,” Kenneth said.
“Yes, your Honor,” Amy said.
Judge Barney turned again to the jury and asked that each of them indicate his or her verdict by stating guilty or not guilty.
Juror number one said “not guilty,” juror number two said “not guilty,” juror number three said “not guilty,” and a series of “not guilty” verdicts was joined by each juror until the foreman, who happened to be juror number twelve. The foreman said “guilty.”
A gasp emanated from the courtroom as though the entire audience had done so in one voice. The followers of Paul’s father cursed and swore under their breaths. Amy scrambled quickly through her notes to find the name of the only juror she had scribbled during the trial. Mr. Gale! When she looked up at the jurors, he was the only one looking at her again, this time he appeared to smile. She managed to smile back.
“Order,” Judge Barney shouted, banging his gavel. “Order.” He was visibly angry. It was the first time throughout the trial he showed so much emotion. “Bailiff, walk the gentlemen with the ACB out of the courtroom immediately,” he directed. Paul’s father was not one of them.
“Bullshit,” one of the men shouted, but Paul’s father raised one hand and the men were instantly silent. They also rose to leave the courtroom before the bailiff got to them.
“Bailiff, you do understand they are to leave the courthouse entirely, not just the courtroom,” Judge Barney said.
“Yes, your Honor,” the bailiff said.
Judge Barney thanked the jurors and told them they were free to go, but asked them to wait again in the jury room while the clerk arranged security for them. The jurors filed back into the jury room.
“I will release the defendant on ten-thousand-dollars bail subject also to him submitting his passport to the police before he is released,” Judge Barney said.
“Your Honor,” Amy began, standing up. “The People expect to refile their case against Mr. Jackson as early as next week. Thus, he remains as much a flight risk now as he was before the verdict, even with the submission of his passport.”
Kenneth got up slowly with his counter argument, but Judge Barney raised his hand indicating Kenneth should not bother.
“Be that as it may, counsel, the People have not yet refiled. When you do so, we will address it,” Judge Barney said.
Kenneth requested that the judge permit the police to release Paul over the weekend provided the conditions are met. Judge Barney agreed.
Paul sat still as though he had not understood the proceeding. Then he began to cry. Kenneth put an arm around him, and he hugged Kenneth and buried his face on Kenneth’s shoulder. Omar walked into the courtroom and walked straight to the defense table. Cassandra told Omar the jurors could not reach a verdict, and he patted Paul on the back. Paul started to thank Cassandra as the sheriff came to lead him away and hugged Omar.
Kenneth could see Amy was shaken by the outcome as she made her way out of the courtroom. Leaving Cassandra with the Jacksons and Omar, he left the courtroom for a short while and when he returned about fifteen minutes later, they were all still in the courtro
om and looking at him curiously. He thanked Cassandra.
“You made this happen, Casey,” Kenneth said.
•••
Amy could not have imagined how disappointed the result of the trial would make her, even knowing in the end that the jury would not reach a verdict. All but one not-guilty vote felt like a complete loss to her. Yet, it fell on her to call Helen Silberberg with the news. Kate, Melissa, and the police officers all gathered in the conference room for the call. Amy knew it would be no consolation to Helen that Paul Jackson would be tried again. At times, during the trial it seemed Helen wished that he was not in fact guilty despite all the evidence to the contrary. Amy told her that the jury could not reach a verdict and apologized for letting her down. When Helen told Amy she was proud of her and how she handled the case, Amy fell apart for the first time in front of everyone and could not stop sobbing. She got up and left the conference room and Kate followed her. Melissa finished the call.
“Do you know why this trial is taking place in Downtown instead of the West LA Courthouse, when the murder was in west LA?” Kate asked when they got to Amy’s office and closed the door.
“No, I just assumed it was the right venue,” Amy said.
“It isn’t. It is here because the 1994 Northridge earthquake damaged the West LA Courthouse and it is undergoing repairs. The repairs should be done this year. All you needed was a hung jury and we get to retry the case in West LA with a more intelligent pool of minds, and the chance to fix the rough ends in the investigation. It will still be your case to win,” Kate said.
“Thanks, Kate,” Amy said.
Melissa and Neda joined Kate in Amy’s office after the call to Helen Silberberg.
At times the mood felt like Amy had lost a loved one rather than obtained a mistrial in a case. Officers Gonzalez, Alvarez, and Fritz waited in the conference room, discussing the deterioration of the jury system. Several times over, all around the office, even among support staff who never heard the evidence, the same question was repeated: What evidence was the damn jury listening to? None of the jurors would speak to either Amy or Paul’s defense team, the officers, or anyone from Paul’s family, but they spoke privately to reporters and seemed to agree to appear on certain television shows.
•••
Cool Jo’s Café was full again and Big was back in his element, walking the floor with the slow swagger of an African elephant. He was dressed in a flowing white suit and blue cotton shirt, he even waltzed every time he passed the dance floor. There was a news van outside, which was perhaps part of the attraction for the capacity crowd on this night. They were filming the lines of people trying to get into the club. “Tomorrow we really celebrate with half-price drinks and free admission, baby,” Big told the newsmen. “Come back tomorrow. The boss will be here.”
•••
At Cassandra’s house in Sherman Oaks, Kenneth excused himself from his usual group of friends and the law students that had gathered. He called Amy and left her another message, then rejoined the crowd. It was the third message he had left her since the judge declared a mistrial. He only wanted to know that she was fine, he told her. “I understand you need some time alone now, but please give me a call. I’d like to hear your voice.”
Cassandra and the rest of Kenneth’s dinner posse had found themselves in Japantown after the verdict, drinking warm sake when Cassandra’s trial tactics students began calling to say they were gathering at her house. So, they all drove to Cassandra’s house in Sherman Oaks and continued their celebration. They were not so much celebrating the mistrial as they were the district attorney’s loss, Tiffany explained to one of the students. “Yeah, baby,” Tiffany said. “I love it when the system works.” Anthony tried to sing Bob Marley’s song “War,” but he only knew the first three lines and the chorus. He hummed away, nonetheless. Cassandra and her students joined him and provided the rest of the lyrics.
Kenneth left Sherman Oaks and drove to Cool Jo’s Café on his way back to the hotel. Cool Jo’s Café was about a mile south of the hotel. The lines were still long, but the doorman stepped aside to wave him through and some in the line clapped. He smiled and waved. Big complained that he had been looking all over the town for him.
“What’s up?” Kenneth asked.
“We planning a big party tomorrow, and you better be here,” Big said.
“I don’t know, Big. I can’t promise you I’ll be here but I’ll try.”
“What the hell are you talking about? You da main man of the occasion. You gotta be here.”
“Yeah, I’ve got a lot to do, Big.”
He took Big aside and gave him all the papers establishing that Paul’s bail had been met. He had managed to get to the court administrator’s office before it closed for the week and filled out the forms necessary to establish that bail had been paid and arranged the security for the bail. There was still further processing that Big would need to do at the sheriff’s office when he delivered Paul’s passport, but Paul could be out by Saturday evening at the latest.
“Shoot, nigga’, you done grown up with this case and shit!” Big said.
“That’s why you were looking for me, right?”
“Yeah, I wanted to find out when we were going to take care of the bail this morning. You didn’t have to use your money, dog. We had it covered.”
“I know. You can pay me later. I just noticed the court was still open for business when we got the mistrial and I could still get across the street and get a cashier’s check from the bank.”
Kenneth left Big watching him as he walked away.
“Better not be with that bitch when you telling me you can’t make the party. Real men finish what they start.”
47
…Conversation Continues
The night Kenneth spent at the hotel alone was the loneliest he could remember. Without the case, there was a void he could not yet define much less begin to fill. He could no longer go back to the struggles of his old practice and mundane caseload, but he did not yet have anything else on the level of People v. Jackson that would continue the intensity of the last few weeks. Perhaps he could seek employment elsewhere.
He still could not reach Amy on Saturday afternoon. The more he waited for her call, the more he wondered how he could survive a relationship with her that sent him to such lows of disappointment when he didn’t hear from her. It was still as excruciating as it had been in college when he waited to hear from her, and as suffocating as it had been a few weeks earlier when Neda told him Amy did not want to speak to him. At these times he felt like the outsider looking in on her and wondering who was there instead of him. He couldn’t bear it any longer.
He had been in bed all morning and afternoon until Nancy came in from her Saturday choir meeting. She said she had come to take as much of the things she brought to the hotel from Long Beach back with her, but then she asked Kenneth who the woman in his closing argument was, and Kenneth knew she had come to see if he was there with anyone. He told her everything about Amy.
•••
Amy drove back from the grocery store with Neda at 5:30 p.m. to find Kenneth standing by his rented car in the driveway to her apartment building. She smiled as she parked her car behind his and got out to meet him while Neda busied herself getting their things out of the trunk. He had worried that Amy wouldn’t receive him well because he had come unannounced, so he was relieved to see her smile.
“Why are you driving a rented car, anyway?” Amy asked
“It’s more reliable than mine. I didn’t want a car that would break down on my way to court.”
“Do you always do that when you’re in trial?”
“Not always. Half my trials couldn’t handle the added expense,” Kenneth said.
“You remember Neda, don’t you?” Amy said as they rejoined her.
“Of course.” Kenneth and Neda acknowled
ged each other and shook hands. Kenneth took some of the bags of groceries that Neda had taken out of the car.
“I’ve been calling you since yesterday,” Kenneth said.
“I know,” Amy said.
“To gloat?” Neda asked.
Amy laughed.
“That’s not even funny,” Kenneth said.
“Blame Neda. I’ve been with her since yesterday, and she wouldn’t let me take your call.”
“And you call yourself a woman-of-color,” Kenneth said to Neda as they got into the elevator.
“I can’t believe you told him about that,” Neda shouted.
“Who? Me? I didn’t know it was a secret,” Amy protested.
“You know what? Here,” Neda said, passing the rest of the groceries she was carrying to Amy. “He can drive you to the airport.”
“Oh, come on. Why wouldn’t you want me to know that?”
“It’s not just that, you’re both hopeless and I don’t want to be caught in the middle of it,” Neda said, standing to the side of the elevator and holding the doors open for them.
“Are you sure you don’t want to come in for just a minute?” Amy asked Neda, as she walked out.
“No, this is better,” Neda said in French. “Are you gonna be okay?” she asked, still speaking French. Amy nodded with a smile. They kissed each other on both cheeks. “No discussion of the case,” Neda said to Kenneth, “and make sure you drive her to the airport,” she added as the elevator closed.
Amy told Kenneth that Neda wouldn’t let her answer any calls that had anything to do with the case, including his. When they got into the apartment, she told him that she had to leave immediately for the airport because she was expecting guests.
“Your client must be happy with you,” Amy said to Kenneth as they drove to the airport.
“I haven’t seen him,” Kenneth said. “I was so relieved that I laid in bed all morning like I was worn down from literally carrying him on my shoulders and now I’m not.”
At a private airstrip by the airport, Thomas came out of the lounge with Edward and Angela. Kenneth pulled up to the curb and Amy got out to hug Angela. As Edward introduced himself to Kenneth, Amy went to Thomas and hugged him as well.