The Jury Read Online Free PDF Page A

looks pained, exasperated.
    "We've been over all that," he says.
    This has been taboo from the start. The specifics of his work have been placed out-of-bounds since we took the case.
    "If I told you the details of what I was working on, I might as well tender my resignation from the university. They would fire me, in a minute, in a heartbeat. Even with tenure I would not survive," he tells us.
    "I'm sorry.
    You'll just have to trust me."
    "That's becoming difficult," says Harry.
    "If you want me to get another lawyer .. ." says Crone.
    "That's not necessary." I cut him off.
    "You don't think they're gonna fire you if you're convicted of murder?" asks Harry.
    "I'll have to take my chances."
    "And if we put you on the stand? What are you going to tell the prosecutor when he asks you about these papers?" I ask.
    "We'll have to cross that bridge when we get to it."
    I was afraid of that.
    chapter two
    Monday, and Crone's case is off-calendar for the day. The court has scheduled downtime so that the judge can clear some other matters from his docket.
    Harry is at his desk working on a motion in a civil case, trying to save a client from bankruptcy. It is a small manufacturer in San Diego, a third-generation company that employs thirty-two people. For almost fifty years Hammond Ltd. has made custom hunting rifles-elephant guns, for want of a better term. These are rare big-bore double-barreled rifles, pieces of art engraved and tooled, some of them inlaid with precious metals by skilled artisans who mastered their craft in Europe.
    Hammonds cheapest rifle runs twelve grand, with models ranging up to eighty-five thousand dollars. They are not your average Saturday-night special. Only a fool would fire one. They are collectors' pieces out of the box, works of art, fashioned to be polished and displayed in cases on a wall against a background of green felt like a finely crafted clock.
    Despite this, the company has been caught up in a class-action lawsuit inspired by politicians mining for antigun votes. The high
    priests of polling have told them that with just a little more flailing, the hysteria among soccer moms will put women on the liberal plantation permanently.
    It is now easy to believe that there are politicians who1 go to bed each night praying for just one more good school shooting, to put them over the top.
    Harry is no lover of guns or those who make them. He is an old-line Democrat, a believer in the workingman and the underdog. He has never cared much for the tyranny of any majority, whether silent or otherwise. And when it is coupled with a scent of hypocrisy, it tends to get his attention.
    He has taken a loser of a case and is now financing it out of our pocket. The price you pay for Harry as a partner is his tilting at a few windmills. It's well worth the cost.
    Twenty states and an equal number of municipalities have now joined the feds in the firearms litigation. A score of small companies around the country whose guns have never been used in a crime are now being driven out of business by the cost of government litigation.
    Harry puts his pencil down.
    "I think maybe I should come with you," he says. He is looking up from the pile of papers spread on the desk in front of him.
    I have a meeting with the prosecutor in the Crone case. We may be in trial, but Harry smells an offer in the making.
    "Even if they do make it," I tell him, "you'll never sell it to Crone. He won't cop a plea to anything. Besides, are you sure you can take the time?"
    "I'll make the time." He turns off the lamp on his desk and grabs his coat.
    "You know he could do worse than voluntary manslaughter," says Harry.
    "Tannery wasn't saying much on the phone," I tell him.
    "Only that it would be worth my while to come over and talk." Tannery called this morning out of the blue and invited me to his office, said it would be
    wise if we had a conversation before things went any further. You could read anything into that. Harry is ever the