From the Eyes of a Juror

by Frank Terranova

  Chapter 9 – Rhyme or Reason (God’s Plan)?

  Wednesday morning June 4, 2008 – 11:15 AM

  Newlan and the other prospective jurors stood patiently in the hallway, waiting what seemed like forever for the next set of instructions from the court officers, and after repeated announcements over the intercom of, “would jurors number 1 through 75 please take all your belongings and line up in the hallway,” followed by more confused-looking jurors joining in the line, one of the court officers finally gave them a briefing.

  “Ladies and gentlemen we are going to be taking you up to courtroom number 630 where a criminal case is in the process of seating jurors. The judge will explain the details of the case…so please don’t ask us about it. To save time we are going to take the stairs up to the courtroom, but anyone who would rather take the elevator please remain in the hallway and a court officer will be available to escort you. But first we need to take attendance. Please answer ‘here’ or ‘present’ when your name is called.”

  And so began the roll call which would determine the fate of the 75 common men and women who stood waiting in line. But for a suddenly distracted Newlan, the court officer’s news brought yet another numerical omen…this time a bad one; the courtroom number, 630, was an exact match with his apartment number. And while another person may have thought the coincidence to be reason enough to by a lottery ticket, for Newlan it was reason to believe that the odds of courtroom 630 becoming his home-away-from-home was growing by the minute; for Newlan it was just another excuse to mumble his favorite expression; “Man, you can’t make this shit up.”

  But despite Newlan’s growing state of disbelief, he forged on, and after the completion of attendance, which also seemed to go on and on, they were ready to roll. Newlan decided he would rather take the stairs, and he watched with curiosity as four court officers hustled back and forth trying to get the procession organized, while occasionally stopping to talk on their two-way radios.

  “Ten four,” shouted one of the officer’s into his radio after another delay, and then he exclaimed to the prospective jurors, “OK everybody…follow me.”

  The majority of the 74 other jurors also decided to take the stairs, and so began their slow march into the halls of justice, led by a very large, muscular court officer and trailed by his short, older, roly-poly colleague.

  If Newlan didn’t know better he would have guessed that the court officers were guarding the prospective jurors, as much as they were leading them, to make sure that no one escaped; it was as if they were convicts on a chain-gang, and suddenly he felt as if he himself was a prisoner; it was a feeling he would come to know all too well in the weeks ahead.

  Newlan climbed the three flights of stairs without a problem, but he could hear many of the prospective jurors breathing rather heavily by the time they made their way up to the sixth floor. He was in pretty good shape for a 49 year old man, but he realized he could be in even better shape if he gave it more of an effort. Although, either way, he resigned himself to the fact that he was probably never going to have a flat belly again, like he did in the days of his youth.

  Newlan would go down to the exercise room in his condo complex a few times a week, which he figured was better than nothing, albeit not by much. On the other hand, he never smoked cigarettes, and he recently decided to watch his diet more closely, so all in all he felt pretty good, health wise. His annual checkup and blood tests routinely came back with normal results, and his blood pressure and cholesterol counts were excellent for a man of his age as well. And yet despite of all of these positive test results, he was a bit of a hypochondriac; it seemed that every little ache and pain would cause him much consternation and have him rushing to see his primary care physician, Doctor Donald Clay.

  Doctor Clay had reached the point where he expected Newlan to show up for a consultation every few months, and Newlan finally realized that maybe he was losing it when Doctor Clay recommended some sort of anti-anxiety medication along with psychiatric counseling.

  “Don’t worry doc, you’re not the first person who’s told me that they think I’m crazy,” Newlan remembered exclaiming to the good doctor.

  “I don’t think you’re crazy Mr. Newlan, I just think you need to learn how to relax,” replied Doctor Clay with a friendly yet all-business smile, the kind of smile that they teach you in medical school.

  But truth be told, Newlan didn’t really care whether Doctor Clay (or anyone else for that matter) thought he was crazy or not. On the flip-side however, he wasn’t too happy about an incident where he thought he was having chest pains, and after numerous tests, his perceptive physician prescribed him with heartburn medication and told him that his problems were all in his head.

  After that episode, Newlan’s trips to Doctor Clay’s office decreased dramatically. He reasoned that otherwise, if he really did end up coming down with a serious malady, Doctor Clay might think he was faking it, and he’d wind up being like the boy who cried wolf once too often.

  But now after climbing three flights of stairs and walking into a situation that was rife for an anxiety attack, Newlan felt perfectly fine, both physically and mentally, which actually kind of surprised him.

  “If only Doctor Clay could see me now,” softly groaned Newlan with a sense of mock pride as he waited for the line to catch up to him. And when the rest of the prospective jurors finally did reach the sixth floor landing they were brusquely motioned towards courtroom 630 where a husky court officer was holding the door open while another officer was patiently ushering everyone into the bench-styled pews.

  Newlan found the scene to be oddly reminiscent of a seating ceremony that you might find at a wedding service, and it reminded him that he hadn’t been to church in ages, which in turn caused his big catholic guilt to kick in.

  And while Newlan kept himself busy pondering his existential fate, slowly but surely all of the prospective jurors, many who appeared to be extremely nervous, quietly filed into the courtroom; and from there they were promptly seated in the same orderly manner by the court officers.

  The first couple of rows were already filled with what Newlan assumed were people who had an interest in the case, and so he had to take a seat all the way down the end of the fourth pew on the right hand side of the courtroom.

  A high-strung young man in his early twenties was seated next to Newlan, and he could tell that the poor kid was petrified, so he leaned over to the lad and whispered; “hey buddy, relax, it’s a well known fact that lawyers don’t want young guys like you on the jury.”

  But despite his good intentions, Newlan’s calming words didn’t seem to help, because he noticed that the youngster appeared to be utterly confused as to why someone was talking to him. If anything, the bambino looked even more freaked-out than he did before Newlan’s little pep talk, so he decided to quit while he was ahead, and he didn’t say another word to the kid.

  The youngster’s fear was almost contagious, but at this stage in the game, Newlan himself still wasn’t too worried about the situation. He had gotten this far in the jury selection process many times before, and he never ended up making the final cut, so he figured the odds were still in his favor; despite the prophetic fact that he shared an apartment number with the courtroom.

  It took a while, but the court officers eventually got all of the prospective jurors seated. However, even with the seating process complete, nothing of importance happened in the way of courtroom activity for at least another fifteen minutes (although to Newlan the delay once again seemed like an eternity). The courtroom became eerily quiet during this break in the action, and Newlan used the time to scan his surroundings, searching for signs of life in the morass of inactivity.

  The first thing Newlan noticed was that renowned local Defense Attorney, R. J. Gleason was sitting at the defense table on the right hand side of the courtroom. Gleason was a tall, husky, balding man in his mid 50’s with white hair, a bushy white beard,
and thick, brown-rimmed glasses. Newlan recalled seeing Gleason on TV on a number of occasions over the years, and for some reason he never forgot his face; for some reason the name stuck in his mind like mud to the side of a car driving through a dirt road in the rain.

  Gleason was no stranger to the spotlight. In fact, it had become common practice for him to have to go on TV to discuss the outcome of his cases, and over time he began to relish the notoriety that his occupation brought him, especially after he got over his initial camera-shyness.

  Most of the time it seemed as if Gleason took on cases that he had no chance of winning; although, over the course of his career, he did manage to procure reduced sentences for a handful of his clients who were obviously guilty, so that in itself could be considered a small moral victory.

  Based on Gleason’s presence, Newlan deduced that the courtroom he found himself in was probably hosting one of the high-profile murder cases, although he didn’t recall reading Gleason’s name in the newspaper story about the three horrible hubbys.

  Sitting next to Gleason was a stocky man with a chiseled jaw and few gray hairs in his sideburns. By the looks of his fidgety mannerisms, Newlan assumed that the poor sucker was the defendant, and he observed him closely. He was positive that the defendant wasn’t Townshend, who he had seen pictures of in the newspaper, so he figured the bedraggled sap had to be either Breslin or McMahn…and if his co-worker Bobby Parant’s inkling was accurate then it stood to reason that it had to be John Breslin who he was now staring at.

  In any event, the defendant, whoever he was, appeared to be in his late forties, and he was wearing a light brown sports jacket and a tie, neither of which seemed to fit around his muscular chest and neck properly. He was also wearing bifocal glasses which he nervously adjusted as he sifted through a stack of papers on the desk. As far as Newlan was concerned, the distressed dude could just as easily have been an absent-minded professor at Tafts University, what with the nerdy glasses and the ill-fitting suit, as opposed to a murder suspect.

  Two well-dressed professionals sat at another desk on the left hand side of the courtroom, and after a few minutes Newlan turned his attention to them.

  “They must be the district attorneys,” assumed Newlan, and so far he was correct on all counts; although, it didn’t take a genius to figure out what was going on up to this point in his adventure.

  One of the DA’s was a woman who looked to be well over sixty years old, even though in reality she was actually quite younger than that. She had long frizzy gray hair which, when combined with her big round glasses, contributed to her aged appearance. She also seemed to have a permanent scowl on her face which didn’t help matters either. All in all, you could make a case that she was in need of the services of a good beauty parlor, and maybe someone or something to put a smile on her face every now and then.

  Sitting next to the elder DA was a junior male lawyer who appeared to be just out of law school, and the contrast between the two of them couldn’t have been more pronounced.

  The judge’s chair, which was raised quite a few feet so that it loomed large as it looked down on the rest of the courtroom, currently sat empty, while at the same time two court clerks, who were stationed behind a long table which was situated just below the judge’s bench area, kept themselves busy organizing piles of documents which seemed to be scattered haphazardly all over the place.

  To the left of the DA’s desk sat sixteen comfortable-looking swivel chairs in two rows of eight, which of course, as anyone who has ever watched a courtroom drama dating back to the days of Perry Mason all the way up to LA Law could tell you was the jury box.

  Meanwhile, two court officers were strategically placed on either side of the courtroom and another officer was standing by the entrance doors. Every once in a while one of the court officer’s would whisper into his two-way radio, which Newlan found to be reminiscent of a security crew who had been entrusted with guarding the stage at a big rock concert. And at right about this time he was wishing that he was at a concert (or more precisely, he was wishing that he was anywhere other than there in the courtroom).

  Newlan’s mind was beginning to wander into a daydream about what he was going to have for lunch, when all of a sudden he was jarred back to reality by the sound of one of the court officer’s exclaiming, “All rise for the honorable Judge Mindy Gershwin.”

  And as everyone rose in unison, Newlan once again had the odd feeling that he was at a church service. But unlike a religious ceremony, the gathered throng only had to stand for a few seconds; just long enough for the judge to enter and say, “You may be seated.”

  Nevertheless, Newlan took a moment to plead his case to the Almighty. He was far from a regular at his local parish, Saint Joseph’s Catholic Church, but he attended often enough to feel justified in resorting to a silent prayer every now and then.

  “Please dear Jesus, get me out of this one and I’ll say a hundred Hail Mary’s in your honor,” pleaded Newlan. The seriousness of the situation was starting to sink in, and although he still didn’t think the odds of him being selected to the jury were very high, he figured that a little talk with the good Lord above couldn’t hurt either.

  The judge was a frail woman of about sixty years old. She had a long face and stylish, shoulder-length graying hair, and if she weren’t wearing a robe, Newlan would never have guessed in a million years that this grandmotherly-looking woman was a superior court judge.

  “Ladies and gentlemen we will be proceeding shortly with juror selection for this trial, which pits the Commonwealth of Massachusetts vs. Mr. John Breslin,” began Judge Gershwin, “but first we will be joined by the jurors who were selected yesterday.”

  “Holy crap, it is the Breslin trial…Bobby Parant’s prediction is coming true. The bastard must be psychic, and here I was, all this time thinking that that was my area of expertise,” moaned Newlan to himself.

  “Wait until I tell Parant and the rest of the gang at work about this tomorrow,” continued Newlan with a smile that bordered on denial. It seemed that after he got over the initial shock of the judge’s introductory comments, he was still, for the most part, completely convinced that he would be back at work in the morning, and that this little adventure would make for some good coffee break conversation; although in the back of his mind, a shadow-of-a-doubt lingered forebodingly.

  And while Newlan ruminated, Judge Gershwin paused and then gave a slight nod to one of the court officer’s who obediently opened up the door to her left.

  “All rise, jurors entering,” exclaimed the court officer in a heavy Boston accent, as in through the out-door walked a flock of jurors, many of whom seemed to be a bit dazed by the sight of the packed courtroom with all eyes focused directly on them.

  As the jurors entered the courtroom, Newlan tried to count how many of them were already in place, but they were nervously moving about at such an arbitrary pace that it made it difficult to hone in on them; it was as if they felt a need to stay physically close to each other for fear of somehow getting lost in an angry crowd. However, once they were sitting down it was easier to survey the number of empty seats in the jury box, and after a quick scan Newlan came up with five empty seats…but that was before he took into account that one of the male juror’s was in a wheelchair, and so by his revised estimation, the final tally was that they were only four jurors short.

  Upon the completion of his unofficial census, Newlan’s spirits began to pick up again. He realized that only a handful of jurors needed to be selected, and since he was number 33 on today’s list, the odds were still in his favor that he’d be back at work tomorrow; the odds were in his favor that once again he’d survive jury duty unscathed; the odds were in his favor that once again he’d walk away with his unblemished record of never being selected to a trial firmly intact.

  And although Newlan’s odds-making calculations may have been comforting to him, once yesterday’s jurors were settled
in their seats, Judge Gershwin resumed her opening remarks, so he was forced to temper his enthusiasm and pay attention to what the honorable judge had to say.

  “Ladies and gentlemen I am going to tell you a little bit about the case, but at the same time I am also just becoming familiar with the specifics myself, and so I will be learning of the details, along with you, the jurors, as the trial goes on.”

  “The Commonwealth contends that Mr. Breslin conspired with a Mr. Samuel Fox to commit murder in the first degree. The Commonwealth alleges that Mr. Breslin paid Mr. Fox to murder a gentleman by the name of Mr. Fred Miller,” continued Judge Gershwin in a narrative, professorial tone.

  “Mr. Fox, as he is entitled by law, will be tried separately, and he will be mentioned in this trial only when and where it is relevant to the case at hand.”

  “At this time I would like to introduce you to Assistant District Attorney, Ms. Elaina Lyons and her partner, Associate District Attorney, Mr. Paul Gentili,” announced Judge Gershwin as the gray-haired female lawyer and the young male lawyer rose and nodded their heads slightly in recognition of her acknowledgement.

  Judge Gershwin then went on to present Defense Attorney, R. J. Gleason to the prospective jurors, and with the formality of the introductions out of the way, she proceeded on with the business of courtroom management.

  “Ladies and gentlemen I am going to ask you a series of questions, and if you can answer ‘yes’ to any of these questions, I would like you to hold the card with your juror number on it, high in the air, so that the court officers can see it. And if you raise your hand for any one question, then you do not need to raise your hand again, even if you can answer ‘yes’ to any of the other questions,” instructed Judge Gershwin…and then she paused for a second before adding, “Is that clear?”

  “Clear or not…like anyone’s gonna speak up. You’d have to be crazy to open your mouth in this charged-up atmosphere,” thought Newlan regarding the prospect of addressing a judge in open court.

  Nevertheless, Judge Gershwin waited for a reply, and when none was forthcoming she trudged on.

  “Firstly, I should let you know that I expect this trial to last roughly three to four weeks before it is turned over to the jury for deliberations, and so if anyone feels that this would be a hardship, then please raise your hand.”

  “Now, although I assure that you will be given every opportunity to explain your situation…I must tell up front that the circumstances of your burden would have to be quite dire for me to even consider excusing you from your civic duty.”

  Despite the slim chance for success, hands shot up throughout the courtroom as Judge Gershwin’s expression changed from a smile to a slight smirk of irritation, while at the same time one of the court officer’s went around the room recording the juror numbers peeking out from the outstretched arms of the inconvenienced.

  The next obvious question took into account whether anyone was personally acquainted with Mr. Breslin, Mr. Fox, or Mr. Miller, and although no one responded in the affirmative, a lot of heads pivoted to and fro, curiously looking to see who might have raised a hand.

  The next question had to do with whether anyone had heard anything about the case through the media, and this time quite a few people raise their hands, including Newlan, who happily thought to himself; “That’s it…if I do make it as far as the jury box then this will be my ticket off the trial. The attorneys aren’t gonna want someone on the jury who’s familiar with the case, so I guess that keeping up-to-date with the depressing local news is finally gonna come in handy for a change.”

  Newlan didn’t feel the least bit guilty about the possibility that he might be removed from the jury. After all, he couldn’t help it that he perused the local papers on a daily basis and watched the news regularly. And as such, surely it was through no fault of his own that he had some knowledge of the case…and thus his wobbly mind was once again at ease.

  Judge Gershwin went on to ask the prospective jurors whether they would be more inclined to believe or disbelieve the testimony of a detective or a police officer simply because that person was a law enforcement official…and a few more people bravely raised their hands.

  “Well if one of them happens to be named Officer Graves then it might be a problem,” thought Newlan as he ruefully recalled his one vexing encounter with the law.

  Next, Judge Gershwin read from a docket of what must have been 75 to 100 names and she asked the prospective jurors if they were familiar with any of the people on the list…and once again a gaggle of people raised their hands.

  “If raising your hand means that you get off the trial then they are gonna run out of jurors pretty quickly,” mused Newlan, and sure enough, by the time Judge Gershwin had finished her informational polling, he estimated that at least ninety five percent of the prospective jurors had raised their hands.

  It took almost a half hour for Judge Gershwin to go through the list of questions, and for the court officers to document the juror numbers of all the people who raised their hands, but finally the empanelment process was ready to begin.

  The procedure commenced with one of the court officer’s asking jurors number 1 through 5 to step up and take a seat on a bench behind and to the right of the defendant’s table. It appeared that any of the prospective jurors who raised a hand in response to one of Judge Gershwin’s queries (which by Newlan’s count was just about everybody) had to be brought up to her desk for an impromptu meeting where she would ask a follow-up question or two, which would ultimately determine whether or not that particular juror was to be excused.

  There were so many people scheduled to be taken up to see Judge Gershwin that a court officer had to be stationed by the gallery divider to handle the flow of traffic to and from her desk. Most of the prospective jurors ended up have extensive drawn-out discussions with the astute judge, while the attorneys, along with the defendant, Mr. Breslin, intently listened in. But regardless of whether the prospective jurors’ discussions with Judge Gershwin were brief or lengthy, in most cases the conversation ended with the probing judge whispering a few words to the court officer, who in turn shouted out, “Juror number such and such has been excused.”

  It took fifteen prospective jurors to fill three of the four empty seats, and coincidently enough, one of the prospective jurors who had the bad luck of being selected was the oriental woman who Newlan had been chatting with while standing in the check-in line.

  The court officer then called for prospective juror numbers 16 through 20 to step up and take a seat at the lonely bench stationed out there in the middle of no-man’s land. One of the ‘unlucky one’s’ in the mix for this go-around happened to be the frightened young man who was seated next to Newlan, and as he gingerly propped himself up, Newlan whispered him a sympathetic, “good luck fella”.

  “Poor kid…he looks like he’s scared shitless,” thought Newlan. And when the unfortunate youngster was selected to fill the last empty seat in the jury box, he couldn’t help but shake his head over the predictable inevitability of it all.

  “That’s what he gets for not raising his hand,” surmised Newlan. Apparently, due to the fact that the inexperienced young juror didn’t raise his hand in response to any of Judge Gershwin’s questions, he was forthwith directed to take a seat in the jury box without having to confer with her.

  “Looks like I dodged another bullet,” muttered Newlan as he breathed a sigh of relief. Although, his choice of words, particularly the word ‘bullet’, uncontrollably echoed in his mind and hastily turned his solace into trepidation. But, as always, he shook it off. He had more pressing things to worry about at the moment, because even though things were looking up, he knew he wasn’t completely out of the woods just yet.

  Newlan was well aware of the fact that the lawyers could still “challenge” the freshly minted jurors without cause. But he figured that since he was number 33 on the list, and only juror numbers 1 through 20 had bee
n called so far, he was probably in pretty good shape, even if one or two of the newly appointed jurors were removed from the case.

  Newlan felt badly for the young man who had been sitting next to him; the same young man who now looked to be completely terrified sitting up there in the jury box. But then again he thought to himself, “oh well, I guess that’s just the luck of the draw.”

  With the remaining seats in the jury box filled, the courtroom settled into an uncomfortable silence as the lawyers shuffled through a pile of documents, which consisted of the questionnaires for the just selected jurors, as well as the jurors who had been selected yesterday.

  District Attorneys Lyons and Gentili as well as Defense Attorney Gleason and Mr. Breslin intently studied the questionnaires, and occasionally whispered suggestions and comments back and forth to each other while the gathering watched on in breathless anticipation.

  It took about fifteen minutes of deliberate consultation, but the attorneys finally approached Judge Gershwin and briefly whispered in her ear. The judge in turn waved one of the court officer’s over to the bench and handed him a piece of paper. The court officer then scanned the piece of paper, and in a loud, clear tone he exclaimed, “Would the jurors in seats number 2, 7, 12 and 16 please rise…you have been excused.”

  Mercifully, the frightened young man happened to be one of the lucky jurors who had the good fortune of being removed, but, much to Newlan’s surprise, the additional three jurors who got excused were jurors who had been selected yesterday. Newlan assumed that the jurors who had survived yesterday’s challenges wouldn’t suddenly be removed a day later, but of course he was quite wrong in that assumption.

  “They must be looking for a certain mix of men and women from different age groups,” speculated Newlan, and just like that, he was on pins-and-needles again. He was happy to see that the terror-stricken kid had been pardoned from his obligation, but not so much if it meant that he might end up taking over the empty seat.

  As the four discharged jurors were being escorted out of the courtroom (visibly-relieved jurors we might add), one of the remaining jurors, a tall gangly young man in his late twenties who had been chosen for empanelment yesterday, was directed up to Judge Gershwin’s desk, and they proceeded to have an intensely animated discussion which bordered on heated. Newlan monitored the dispute with great interest; he was more than a little curious as to whether the difference of opinion would lead to another dismissal. But even after pleading his case as if his life depended on it, the dissenting juror was nonetheless directed back to his seat in the jury box.

  “Wow, he fought hard. He must have really wanted out. I wonder what his argument was all about. I bet he came up with an excuse overnight, and he figured he’d give it a shot. Well whatever it was, it didn’t work,” deduced Newlan as he began to formulate his own strategy.

  Prospective juror numbers 21 through 30 were called up to the bench and three of the four empty seats in the jury box were promptly refilled.

  “This is getting too close for comfort…one seat left and I’m third one in the next grouping,” mumbled Newlan as he shifted nervously in his seat.

  Newlan vigorously rubbed his eyes and ruffled up his long, stringy hair so that it partially covered his face; all in an attempt to come across as raggedy as possible, in hopes that his gruff appearance might cause one of the attorney’s to boot his ass out of the jury box if it got that far. Meanwhile, he silently began rehearsing what he was going to say, if and when his turn came up, and at this point it was looking more and more as if his meeting with the esteemed Judge Gershwin was all but a certainty.

  And while Newlan concentrated on his lines, the court officer called for juror numbers 31 through 35 to rise.

  Newlan and the other four prospective jurors with unlucky numbers 31, 32, 34, and 35, slowly rose from their seats, and they were directed towards the bench in the middle of the danger-zone.

  Prospective juror number 31 was sent up to Judge Gershwin’s desk, and after another fairly lengthy discussion the court officer exclaimed, “Juror number 31 has been excused.”

  Newlan desperately tried to listen in on the exchange, in hopes of picking up a few pointers on to how to go about getting oneself removed from a case, and although he couldn’t quite make out the exact details of the conversation, he was able to overhear a few snippets of dialogue regarding hardship and employment. But that excuse wasn’t going to work for him since he wasn’t self-employed.

  “Oh shit, we’re getting down to crunch time,” acceded a panicky Newlan as his last hope, juror number 32, an elderly Spanish lady, was guided up to the eminent judge’s desk.

  The woman’s Provencal accent went from a whisper to a scream, probably due to nerves, and Judge Gershwin shushed her to lower her voice, but Newlan could clearly make out the words, “no speaka engileshe.”

  “You’ve gotta be kidding me…she’s obviously faking it,” grumbled Newlan as the court officer shouted out, “juror number 32 has been excused.”

  And with that unwelcome announcement, the superstitious Newlan winced as he recalled discussing jurors’ excuses, such as not being able to speak English, with Gloria Moorhead. And now he regretted opening his big mouth since he was beginning to feel as if he may have somehow hexed himself.

  Newlan silently whispered his favorite expression for the third time of the morning, “Man, you can’t make this shit up,” just as the court officer pointed him towards Judge Gershwin.

  “Here goes nothing,” grunted Newlan as he apprehensively approached the waiting judge.

  “I understand that you have some knowledge of the case?” verbalized Judge Gershwin in a motherly tone.

  “Yes your honor,” croaked Newlan; his throat dry from the morning’s smoking session.

  “And is your knowledge based on newspaper reports and/or other media outlets?” inquired Judge Gershwin…and Newlan went on to explain how he recalled hearing about the murder on TV at the time that the incident occurred, and that he had just read a story about the three high-profile ‘horrible hubby’ cases in the newspaper just last week.

  Judge Gershwin countered by asking whether he had gleaned any additional details pertaining to the case, other than what she had outlined in her overview.

  Newlan thought for a moment about lying and overstating his knowledge of the case, but he didn’t have enough confidence in his poker-face to attempt such a fraudulent maneuver; not to mention the fact that the courtroom surroundings had him intimidated to boot.

  But when weighing the pros and cons of his subtly deceitful gambit, in reality, Newlan’s biggest fear was that the intuitive Judge Gershwin would be able to see right through him if he fibbed, and that she’d hold him in contempt of court. He had a vision of himself being thrown into a dark, dank, desolate, dungeon, and so instead of fabricating an untruth, he admitted that he was unaware of anything specific regarding the case, aside from the basic who, what, when, and where. However, in a last ditch effort to wrangle up a dismissal from the case, he added, “But I have seen Mr. Gleason on TV a few times.”

  But alas, unfortunately for Newlan, Judge Gershwin didn’t seem to be the least bit concerned that he had an elemental knowledge of the events surrounding the case, nor did she care that he was vaguely familiar with Mr. Gleason for that matter.

  “Please take a seat in the jury box,” politely requested the forthright judge.

  “But your honor…,” responded Newlan in an anxious tone. However, before he could say another word, the burliest of the court officer’s gently, but firmly, grasped him by the left elbow and pointed him towards the remaining empty seat in the jury box; seat number 16 to be exact.

  Newlan’s instinctive reaction was to push away the court officer’s hand. In a strange way, he felt as if he had done something wrong and that he was being punished for his indiscretion. Of course, he wasn’t that stupid, and so in the end he wisely resisted the urge to take out hi
s hostilities in a physical manner.

  As Newlan made the long walk to his seat in the jury box, he rationalized that he wouldn’t have known what else to say to Judge Gershwin anyway, even if he had been given the opportunity to have a few more words with her, and he cursed himself for not coming prepared with a good excuse and plenty of back-ups in reserve.

  “Damn it, I should have just lied my ass off…but I guess it’s too late for that now,” moaned Newlan as he squirmed in his swivel chair.

  While Newlan attempted to get comfortable with the proximity of his new surroundings, his paranoid side alerted him to the fact that everyone in the gallery seemed to have their eyes focused squarely on the jury box area, and in response to his irrational disposition, he angled his seat in the direction of the judge’s desk in an effort to shield his face from the audience.

  In the meantime, as the lawyers and the defendant Breslin ambled their way back to their respective desks, for a brief second Breslin made subtle but definite eye-contact with Newlan, or at least Newlan seemed to think he did

  For his part, Newlan looked away, almost immediately, and he vowed that if he ended up being selected to participate in the trial, he would never again make eye-contact with Breslin.

  During the break in the action, Newlan once again reflected back to his prior jury duty experiences. He had made it as far as the jury box on numerous occasions before, only to get challenged by the DA every single time…and so he persuaded himself that all was not lost. Even now, when things were looking grim, he convinced himself that there was still a glimmer of a chance that an imminent removal from the jury might be in the cards this time as well, and with that thought in mind, his faltering spirits were momentarily lifted like a ghost rising from the dead.

  Newlan forced an abrasive frown onto his face, which didn’t take much of an effort on his part since he truly was annoyed by the latest turn of events, and he tried his best to portray himself as the sort of person that the attorneys might want to remove from the case, while at the same time the lawyers repeated the routine of reviewing the juror questionnaires.

  From his newly commissioned vantage point in the jury box, Newlan was able to get a better look at the attorneys’ desks, and the unobstructed view also permitted him to gain a refined perspective on the defendant, Breslin, who now looked markedly out of place wearing his lumpy suit and bifocal goggles. As far as Newlan was concerned, when taken from another angle, his collegial look had all but disappeared, replaced instead by someone or something a bit more sinister in appearance.

  With nothing better to do, Newlan kicked back in his chair and prepared himself to wait out what he expected to be another lengthy delay, but, much to his surprise, this time the legal parties only conferred for a few minutes before approaching the judge’s bench.

  Newlan imprudently assumed that this rapid decision-making process was an indication that he was going to be expelled from the trial posthaste, and so you can imagine his shock when Judge Gershwin looked up and in a calm but bright voice she announced, “We have a jury.”

  “We have a jury? What do you mean we have a jury? I’m still up here,” postulated a stunned Newlan as he nonsensically considered pulling an Al Pacino and jumping out of his seat while frantically proclaiming, “You’re out of order your honor. The attorneys are out of order. The whole friggin’ courtroom is out of order.”

  Newlan wistfully smiled as he pictured himself going berserk in the courtroom, and as he did, for some reason, his co-worker Bob Parant’s conjecture regarding his selection onto the Breslin jury popped into his head again.

  “Wait until I see that old SOB at work…I’m really pissed off at him for jinxing me, and I’m gonna give him hell for sure,” cursed Newlan. Although, when he contemplated the situation rationally, he couldn’t seriously blame Parant for his woes; deep down inside he knew that it all boiled down the luck of the draw; just like it was the ironic luck of the draw that he was now replacing the petrified kid who he had felt so sorry for.

  With no other options available to him, Newlan reluctantly accepted his fate, but at the same time he wondered why the DA’s side of the aisle didn’t remove him from the case as they had done in the past; as he was positive that they would do this time as well.

  However, what Newlan would never come to know was that DA Lyons had a very bad feeling about him from the moment she laid her eyes on him. But unfortunately for her, she had already used up her limited number of peremptory challenges and so she had no choice but to live with him being on the jury and make the best of it.

  Lyons was hoping and praying that Gleason might, for one reason or another, remove Newlan from the case. But much to the contrary, as Gleason and Breslin reviewed his juror questionnaire, a hint of recognition came over them; “Illegally arrested on the outrageous charge of drinking in public 28 years ago, but was vindicated when I was found innocent by a district court judge” indeed; it was as if they had finally struck precious gold in a canyon full of worthless rocks.

  Gleason gave Breslin a slight wink as he slyly whispered to him, “This one’s a keeper.”

  Meanwhile back at the ranch, the oblivious Newlan was doing his best to come to terms with his misfortune, and as he leaned back in his swivel chair, he found himself shifting nervously back and forth while at the same time he covertly took in his new colleagues’ countenances in attempt to catch a glimpse of their hearts. It was as if he were checking out Gloria Moorhead all over again, except that this time it wasn’t with romantic intentions in mind that he studied their somber faces.

  Newlan wondered who these strangers were. He wondered about the shared destiny that had befallen them; the star-crossed destiny that had brought them together to this place and time and under these trying circumstances. He wondered why they were the chosen ones. Was there any rhyme or reason behind God’s plan…or was it all just some random jumble of happenstance?

  Newlan seemed to answer his own question as he absentmindedly muttered, “oh well, I guess everything happens for a reason,” and then with a wry smile he added, “Man, you can’t make this shit up.”