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Grimes hesitated as he contemplated his response. The courtroom was still. Finally, “Who says blind people can’t serve on juries?”
    Harkin was already reaching for a lawbook. His Honor was meticulously prepared for this trial. He’dstopped hearing other matters a month ago, and had secluded himself in his chambers, where he pored over pleadings, discovery, the applicable law, and the latest in the rules of trial procedure. He’d picked dozens of juries during his tenure on the bench, all kinds of juries for all kinds of cases, and he thought he’d seen it all. So of course he’d get ambushed during the first ten minutes of jury selection. And of course the courtroom would be packed.
    “You want to serve, Mr. Grimes?” he said, trying to force a lighthearted moment as he flipped pages and looked at the wealth of legal talent assembled nearby.
    Mr. Grimes was growing hostile. “You tell me why a blind person can’t be on a jury. If it’s written in the law, then the law is discriminatory, and I’ll sue. If it ain’t written in the law, and if it’s just a matter of practice, then I’ll sue even faster.”
    There was little doubt that Mr. Grimes was no stranger to litigation.
    On one side of the bar were two hundred little people, those dragged into court by the power of the law. On the other side was the law itself—the Judge sitting elevated above the rest, the packs of stuffy lawyers looking down their nasty noses, the clerks, the deputies, the bailiffs. On behalf of the draftees, Mr. Herman Grimes had struck a mighty blow at the establishment, and he was rewarded with chuckles and light laughter from his colleagues. He didn’t care.
    Across the railing, the lawyers smiled because the prospective jurors were smiling, and they shifted in their seats and scratched their heads because no one knew what to do. “I’ve never seen this before,” they whispered.
    The law said that a blind person may be excused from jury service, and when the Judge saw the word may he quickly decided to placate Mr. Grimes and deal with him later. No sense getting sued in your own courtroom. There were other ways to exclude him from jury duty. He’d discuss it with the attorneys. “On second thought, Mr. Grimes, I think you’d make an excellent juror. Please be seated.”
    Herman Grimes nodded and smiled and politely said, “Thank you, sir.”
    How do you factor in a blind, juror? The experts mulled this question as they watched him slowly bend and sit. What are his prejudices? Which side will he favor? In a game with no rules, it was a widely held axiom that people with handicaps and disabilities made great plaintiff’s jurors because they better understood the meaning of suffering. But there were countless exceptions.
    From the back row, Rankin Fitch strained to his right in a vain effort to make eye contact with Carl Nussman, the man who’d already been paid $1,200,000 to select the perfect jury. Nussman sat in the midst of his jury consultants, holding a legal pad and studying the faces as if he’d known perfectly well that Herman Grimes was blind. He hadn’t, and Fitch knew he hadn’t. It was a minor fact that had slipped through their vast web of intelligence. What else had they missed? Fitch asked himself. He’d peel the hide off Nussman as soon as they broke for a recess.
    “Now, ladies and gentlemen,” the Judge continued, his voice suddenly sharper and anxious to move on now that an on-the-spot discrimination suit had been averted. “We enter into a phase of jury selection that will be somewhat time-consuming. Itdeals with physical infirmities which might prevent you from serving. We are not going to embarrass you, but if you have a physical problem, we need to discuss it. We’ll start with the first row.”
    As Gloria Lane stood in the aisle by row one, a man of about sixty raised his hand, then got to his feet and walked through the small swinging gate of the bar. A bailiff led him to the witness chair