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Executive Times |
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2005 Book Reviews |
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The Last
Juror by John Grisham |
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Rating: •• (Mildly Recommended) |
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Character I took a breath, sat down, and finished
last year’s Grisham novel just in time for this year’s to join the queue. In The Last
Juror, Grisham shines when he describes life in the South in the 1970s,
and in the courtroom. The other two hundred pages tend to plod along because
Grisham continues to lag on character development and dialogue. The novel
becomes tedious at times. Here’s
an excerpt, all of Chapter 14, pp. 118-125: On
Monday, June 22, all but
eight of the hundred jurors arrived for the trial of Danny Padgitt. As we
soon found out, four were dead and four had simply vanished. For the most
part, the rest looked very anxious. Baggy said that usually jurors have no
idea what kind of case they might be selected to decide when they arrive. Not
so with the Padgitt trial. Every breathing soul in Few things draw a crowd
in a small town like a good murder trial, and the courtroom was full long
before 9 A.M. The prospective
jurors filled one side, spectators the other. The old balcony practically sagged
above us. The walls were lined with people. As a show of strength, Sheriff
Coley had every available uniformed body milling around, looking important,
doing nothing productive. What a perfect time to pull a bank heist, I
thought. Baggy and I were in the
front row. He had convinced the Circuit Court clerk that we were entitled to
press credentials, thus special seating. Next to me was a reporter from the
newspaper in The Padgitts were there
in full force. They sat in chairs pulled close to the defense table and
huddled around Danny and Lucien Wilbanks like the den of thieves they really were.
They were arrogant and sinister and I couldn’t help but hate every one of
them. I didn’t know them by name; few people did. But as I watched them I
wondered which one had been the incompetent arsonist who’d sneaked into our
printing room with gallons of gasoline. I had my pistol in my briefcase. I’m
sure they had theirs close by. A false move here or there and an
old-fashioned gunfight would erupt. Throw in Sheriff Coley and his poorly
trained but trigger-happy boys, and half the town would get wiped out. I caught a few stares
from the Padgitts, but they were much more worried about the jurors than me.
They watched them closely as they filed into the courtroom and took their
instructions from the clerk. The Padgitts and their lawyers looked at lists that
they had found somewhere. They compared notes. Danny was nicely but
casually dressed in a white long-sleeved shirt and a pair of starched khakis.
As instructed by Wilbanks, he was smiling a lot, as if he were really a nice
kid whose innocence was about to be revealed. Across the aisle, Ernie
Gaddis and his smaller crew were likewise observing the prospective jurors.
Gaddis had two assistants, one a paralegal and one a part-time prosecutor
named Hank Hooten. The paralegal carried the files and briefcases. Hooten
seemed to do little but just be there so Ernie would have someone to confer
with. Baggy leaned over as if
it was time to whisper. “That guy there, brown suit,” he said, nodding at
Hooten. “He was screwin’ Rhoda Kassellaw.” I was shocked and my face
showed it. I jerked to the right and looked at Baggy. He nodded smugly and
said what he always said when he had the scoop on something really nasty.
“That’s what I’m tellin’ you,” he whispered. This meant that he had no
doubts. Baggy was often wrong but never in doubt. Hooten appeared to be
about forty with prematurely gray hair, nicely dressed, somewhat handsome.
“Where’s he from?” I whispered. The courtroom was noisy as we waited for
Judge Loopus. “Here. He does some real
estate law, low-pressure stuff. A real jerk. Been divorced a couple of times,
always on the prowl.” “Does Gaddis know his
assistant was seeing the victim?” “Hell no. Ernie would
pull him from the case.” “You think Wilbanks
knows?” “Nobody knows,” Baggy
said with even greater smugness. It was as if he had personally caught them
in bed, then kept it to himself until that very moment in the courtroom. I
wasn’t sure I believed him. Miss Callie arrived a few
minutes before nine. Esau escorted her into the courtroom, then had to leave
when he couldn’t find a seat. She checked in with the clerk and was placed in
the third row; she was given a questionnaire to fill out. She looked around
for me but there were too many people between us. I counted four other blacks
in the pool. A bailiff bellowed for us
to rise, and it sounded like a stampede. Judge Loopus told us to sit, and the
floor shook. He went straight to work and appeared to be in good spirits. He
had a courtroom full of voters and he was up for reelection in two years,
though he had never had an opponent. Six jurors were excused because they
were over the age of sixty-five. Five were excused for medical reasons. The
morning began to drag. I couldn’t take my eyes off Hank Hooten. He certainly
had the look of a ladies’ man. When the preliminary
questions were over, the panel was down to seventy-nine duly qualified
jurors. Miss Callie was now in the second row, not a good sign if she wanted
to avoid jury service. Judge Loopus yielded the floor to Ernie Gaddis, who
introduced himself to the panel again and explained in great length that he
was there on behalf of the State of He was there to prosecute
Mr. Danny Padgitt, who had been indicted by a grand jury, made up of their
fellow citizens, for the rape and murder of Rhoda Kassellaw He asked if it
was possible that anyone had not heard something about the murder. Not a
single hand went up. Ernie had been talking to
juries for thirty years. He was friendly and smooth and gave the impression
that you could discuss almost anything with him, even in open court. He moved
slowly into the area of intimidation. Has anyone outside your family
contacted you about this case? A stranger? Has a friend tried to influence
your opinion? Your summons was mailed to you; the jury list is locked under
seal. No one is supposed to know that you’re a potential juror. Has anyone
mentioned it to you? Anyone threatened you? Anyone offered you anything? The
courtroom was very quiet as Ernie led them through these questions. No one raised a hand;
none was expected. But Ernie was successful in conveying the message that
these people, the Padgitts, had been moving through the shadows of He began his finish with
a question that cut through the air like a rifle shot. “Do all of you folks
understand that jury tampering is a crime?” They seemed to
understand. ‘And that I, as the
prosecutor, will pursue, indict, bring to trial, and do my utmost to convict
any person involved with jury tampering. Do you understand this?” When Ernie finished we
all felt as though we’d been tampered with. Anyone who’d talked about the
case, which of course was every person in the county, seemed in danger of
being indicted by Ernie and hounded to the grave. “He’s effective,”
whispered the reporter from Lucien Wilbanks began
with a lengthy and quite dull lecture about the presumption of innocence and
how it is the foundation of American jurisprudence. Regardless of what they’d
read in the local newspaper, and here he managed a scornful glance in my
general direction, his client, sitting right there at the moment, was an
innocent man. And if anyone felt otherwise, then he or she was duty bound to
raise a hand and say so. No hands. “Good. Then by
your silence you’re telling the Court that you, all of you, can look at Danny
Padgitt right now and say he is innocent. Can you do that?” He hammered them
on this for far too long, then shifted to the burden of proof with another
lecture on the State’s monumental challenge to prove his client guilty
beyond a reasonable doubt. These two sacred
protections—the presumption of innocence and proof beyond a reasonable
doubt—were granted to all of us, including the jurors, by the very wise men
who wrote our Constitution and Bill of Rights. We were approaching noon
and everybody was anxious for a break. Wilbanks seemed to miss this and he
kept rattling on. When he sat down at twelve-fifteen, Judge Loopus announced
that he was starving. We would recess until two o’clock. Baggy and I had a
sandwich upstairs in the Bar Room with several of his cronies, three aging
washed-up lawyers who hadn’t missed a trial in years. Baggy really wanted a
glass of whiskey, but for some odd reason felt the call of duty. His pals did
not. The clerk had given us a list of jurors as they were currently seated.
Miss Callie was number twenty-two, the first black and the third female. It was the general
feeling that the defense would not challenge her because she was black, and
blacks, according to the prevailing theory, were sympathetic to those accused
of crimes. I wasn’t sure how a black person could be sympathetic to a white
thug like Danny Padgitt, but the lawyers were unshakable in their belief that
Lucien Wilbanks would gladly take her. Under the same theory,
the prosecution would exercise one of its arbitrary, peremptory challenges
and strike her from the panel. Not so, said Chick Elliot, the oldest and
drunkest of the gang. “I’d take her if I were prosecuting,” he argued, then
knocked back a potent shot of bourbon. “Why?” Baggy asked. “Because we know her so
well, now, thanks to the Times. She came across as a sensible,
God-fearing, Bible-quoting patriot, who raised all those kids with a heavy
hand and a swift kick in the ass if they screwed up.” “I agree,” said Tackett,
the youngest of the three. Tackett, though, had a tendency to agree with
whatever the prevailing theory happened to be. “She’d make an ideal juror for
the prosecution. Plus, she’s a woman. It’s a rape case. I’d take all the
women I could get.” They argued for an hour.
It was my first session with them, and I suddenly understood how Baggy
collected so many differing opinions about so many issues. Though I tried not
to show it, I was deeply concerned that my long and generous stories about
Miss Callie would somehow come back to haunt her. After lunch, Judge Loopus
moved into the most serious phase of questioning—the death penalty. He
explained the nature of a capital offense and the procedures that would be
followed, then he yielded again to Ernie Gaddis. Juror number eleven was a
member of some obscure church and he made it very clear that he could never
vote to send a person to the gas chamber. Juror number thirty-four was a veteran
of two wars and he felt rather strongly that the death penalty wasn’t used
often enough. This, of course, delighted Ernie, who singled out individual
jurors and politely asked them questions about judging others and imposing
the death sentence. He eventually made it to Miss Callie. “Now, Mrs. Ruffin,
I’ve read about you, and you seem to be a very religious woman. Is this
correct?” “I do love the Lord, yes
sii” she answered, as clear as always. ‘Are you hesitant to sit
in judgment of another human?” “I am, yes sir.” “Do you want to be
excused?” “No sir. It’s my duty as
a citizen to be here, same as all these other folks.” ‘And if you’re on the
jury, and the jury finds Mr. Padgitt guilty of these crimes, can you vote to
put him to death?” “I certainly wouldn’t
want to.” “My question was, ‘Can
you?’” “I can follow the law,
same as these other folks. If the law says that we should consider the death
penalty, then I can follow the law.” F
our hours later, Calia H.
Ruffin became the last juror chosen—the first black to serve on a trial jury
in Late that night I sat
alone in my office working on a story about the opening day and jury
selection. I heard a familiar noise downstairs. Harry Rex had a way of shoving
open the front door and stomping on the wooden floors so that everybody at
the Times, regardless of the time of day, knew he had arrived. “Willie
boy!” he yelled from below “Up here,” I yelled back. He rumbled up the stairs
and fell into his favorite chair. “Whatta you think of the jury?” he said. He
appeared to be completely sober. “I only know one of
them,” I said. “How many do you know?” “Seven.” “You think they picked
Miss Callie because of my stories?” “Yep,” he said, brutally
honest as always. “Everybody’s been talkin’ about her. Both sides felt like
they knew her. It’s 1970 and we’ve never had a black juror. She looked as
good as any. Does that worry you?” “I guess it does.” “Why? What’s wrong with
servin’ on a jury? It’s about time we had blacks doin’ it. She and her
husband have always been anxious to break down barriers. Ain’t like it’s
dangerous. Well, normally it ain’t dangerous.” I hadn’t talked to Miss
Callie and I would not be able to do so until after the trial. Judge Loopus had
ordered the jurors sequestered for the week. By then they were hiding in a
motel in another town. ‘Any suspicious
characters on the jury?” I asked. “Maybe. Everybody’s
worried about that crippled boy from out near Dumas. Fargarson. Hurt his back
in a sawmill owned by his uncle. The uncle sold timber to the Padgitts many
years ago. The boy has some attitude. Gaddis wanted to bump him but he ran
out of challenges.” The crippled boy walked
with a cane and was at least twenty-five years old. Harry Rex referred to
anyone younger than himself and especially me, as “boy.” “But with the Padgitts
you never know” he continued. “Hell, they could own half the jury by now.” “You don’t really believe
that, do you?” “Naw, but a hung jury
wouldn’t surprise me either. It might take two or three shots at this boy
before Ernie gets him.” “But he will go to
prison, won’t he?” The thought of Danny Padgitt escaping punishment
frightened me. I had invested myself in the town of “They’ll hang his ass.” “Good. The death
penalty?” “I’d bet on it,
eventually. This is the buckle of the Bible Belt, Willie. An eye for an eye,
all that crap. Loopus’ll do everything he can to help Ernie get a death verdict.” I then made the mistake
of asking him why he was working so late. A divorce client had left town on
business, then sneaked back to catch his wife with her boyfriend. The client
and Harry Rex had spent the last two hours in a borrowed pickup behind a
hot-sheets motel north of town. As it turned out, the wife had two
boyfriends. The story took half an hour to tell. The local color that Grisham dwells on
in The
Last Juror can be entertaining at times, but the real story of racism and
power in small towns never quite receives enough heft. If you’re a Grisham
fan and haven’t read The Last
Juror by now, go ahead and enjoy it. Steve Hopkins,
January 25, 2005 |
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ã 2005 Hopkins and Company, LLC The recommendation rating for
this book appeared in the February 2005
issue of Executive Times URL for this review: http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/The
Last Juror.htm For Reprint Permission,
Contact: Hopkins & Company, LLC • E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
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