The Runaway Jury Read Online Free PDF Page A

curious types. Rankin Fitch pretended to read a newspaper in the back row.
    More lawyers filed in. Then the jury consultants from both sides took their positions in the cramped seats between the railing and the counsel tables. They began the uncomfortable task of staring into the inquiring faces of 194 strangers. The consultants studied the jurors because, first, that was what they were being paid huge sums of money to do, and second, because they claimed to be able to thoroughly analyze a person through the telltale revelations of body language. They watched and waited anxiously for arms to fold across the chest, for fingers to pick nervously at teeth, for heads to cock suspiciously to one side, for a hundred other gestures that supposedly would lay a person bare and expose the most private of prejudices.
    They scribbled notes and silently probed the faces. Juror number fifty-six, Nicholas Easter, received more than his share of concerned looks. He sat in the middle of the fifth row, dressed in starched khakis and a button-down, a nice-looking young man. He glanced around occasionally, but his attention was directed at a paperback he’d brought for the day. No one else had thought to bring a book.
    More chairs were filled near the railing. The defense had no fewer than six jury experts examining facial twitches and hemorrhoidal clutches. The plaintiff was using only four.
    For the most part, the prospective jurors didn’t enjoy being appraised in such a manner, and for fifteen awkward minutes they returned the glaring with scowls of their own. A lawyer told a private joke near the bench, and the laughter eased the tension. The lawyers gossiped and whispered, but the jurors were afraid to say anything.
    The last lawyer to enter the courtroom was, ofcourse, Wendall Rohr, and as usual, he could be heard before he was seen. Since he didn’t own a dark suit, he wore his favorite opening-day ensemble—a gray checkered sports coat, gray slacks that didn’t match, a white vest, blue shirt with red-and-yellow paisley bow tie. He was barking at a paralegal as they strode in front of the defense lawyers, ignoring them as if they’d just finished a heated skirmish somewhere in the rear. He said something loudly to another plaintiff’s lawyer, and once he had the attention of the courtroom, he gazed upon his potential jurors. These were his people. This was his case, one he’d filed in his hometown so he could one day stand in this, his courtroom, and seek justice from his people. He nodded at a couple, winked at another. He knew these folks. Together, they would find the truth.
    His entrance rattled the jury experts on the defense side, none of whom had actually met Wendall Rohr, but all of whom had been briefed extensively on his reputation. They saw the smiles on the faces of some of the jurors, people who actually knew him. They read the body language as the entire panel seemed to relax and respond to a familiar face. Rohr was a local legend. Fitch cursed him from the back row.
    Finally, at ten-thirty, a deputy burst from the door behind the bench and shouted, “All rise for the court!” Three hundred people jumped to their feet as the Honorable Frederick Harkin stepped up to the bench and asked everyone to be seated.
    For a judge he was quite young, fifty, a Democrat appointed by the governor to fill an unexpired term, then elected by the people. Because he’d once been a plaintiff’s lawyer, he was now rumored to be a plaintiff’sjudge, though there was no truth to this. Just gossip deliciously-spread by members of the defense bar. In reality, he’d been a decent general practitioner in a small firm not noted for its courtroom victories. He’d worked hard, but his passion had always been local politics, a game he’d played skillfully. His luck had paid off with an appointment to the bench, where he now earned eighty thousand dollars a year, more than he’d ever made as a lawyer.
    The sight of a courtroom packed with