“Mrs. Meyers,” the judge continues.
She faces him again, her eyes wide, surprised. My heart aches for her.
“I have to ask you,” he says, “it’s my duty to ask this question. Do you believe the information you just shared with us will interfere with your ability to fairly decide this case if you are selected to serve?”
She actually laughs. For the first time since she walked in here, she looks around the room at the rest of us. “Do any of you have children?”
The judge and I both nod.
“What do you think?” she asks us.
Judge Gould’s eyes meet mine but neither of us speaks. No need.
“Thank you, Mrs. Meyers,” the judge says as he stands. “Please return to your seat in the jury box. We’ll be done here in a few minutes.”
She complies without a word and Big Red sends in the last of our jurors to be interviewed, the silver-haired woman from the back row. “Mrs. Rowlands,” the judge says, gesturing toward the empty chair, “please join us.”
She does, careful to smooth her coatdress before she sits. Her handbag is the size of a large bread box; it covers her entire lap. “I’ve had it,” she tells us before Judge Gould says another word, “with the entire Roman Catholic Church.”
The judge laughs a little, then catches himself. He sits up straighter and forces his face into neutral. “Tell us why,” he says.
She looks at him the way Luke looks at me when I can’t recite the latest Red Sox stats. She wonders if he’s been living under a rock. “They robbed me of my church,” she says. “My church. The church I was born and raised in. Now I’m without a place to worship. And I’m seventy-three. Too old to shop for a new one.”
The judge looks like he might have a question, but Mrs. Rowlands doesn’t wait for it. “I can’t walk into a Catholic church without getting so angry I want to scream. Criminals, every last one of them.”
The judge puts both hands up to stop her. “Mrs. Rowlands, surely you don’t think every Catholic priest was involved in child molestation?”
“Involved? Oh, they were involved, all right. Those who weren’t actively abusing protected the abusers, moved them from parish to parish, knowing a whole new crop of youngsters would be waiting at each one. While the children suffered, they protected their pals. Organized crime, plain and simple.”
“But Mrs. Rowlands, many priests did neither. They didn’t abuse children and they knew nothing about those who did.”
“Oh, they knew,” she says. “Don’t kid yourself. It was there to be seen. They knew and they kept quiet. Cowards. Criminals and cowards.” Her eyes dart around the room, daring any one of us to contradict her.
“Mrs. Rowlands,” the judge takes a deep breath and exhales slowly, “let’s talk about this particular case.”
She shifts in her chair, adjusts her pocketbook.
“You understand, don’t you, that this matter has nothing to do with the child-abuse scandal we’ve heard so much about lately?”
She nods.
“And you understand there’s no child involved here?”
“I do,” she says. “I realize that.”
“So even though you’re angry with the Catholic Church—as many people are—do you think you’d be able to put your anger aside if you were chosen to sit on this panel? Would you be able to base your decision solely on the evidence presented in the courtroom?”
She frowns, doesn’t answer. Like Mr. Harmon, she seems to be giving it real thought. “I suppose so,” she says at last.
Geraldine looks at each of us, then rolls her green eyes to the ceiling. Fat chance, she telegraphs.
“Thank you, Mrs. Rowlands,” the judge says. “You may return to your seat in the jury box now.”
She stands to leave and Clarence opens the chambers door for her. Geraldine begins her argument before it’s shut. “Meyers and Rowlands,” she says. “For cause.”
“Harmon,” Harry counters. “For cause.”
“Meyers is out,” the judge answers. “The other two stay.”
“But, Judge,” Harry argues, “Harmon thinks the dead guy walked on water. He’s not going to be able to put that aside. I don’t care what he says.”
The judge shakes his head. “He said he would and I believe him. He went to one Mass two years ago. It’s not enough.”
“But Rowlands,” Geraldine says. “She’s already made up her mind about every Catholic priest. She told us so.”
“She also told us she’d decide this case on the evidence presented, nothing else.” Judge Gould stands and gathers his papers. We’re done in here, it seems.
Harry and Geraldine both start in again, but the judge heads for the door. “If you feel that strongly,” he says to both of them, “use a peremptory.”
Nobody’s happy. Geraldine storms out behind Judge Gould, Clarence in her wake. Harry gives my shoulder a little squeeze as he passes, his expression grim. Each side will be allowed just three peremptories at the conclusion of voir dire, three opportunities to oust a juror for no stated reason. No lawyer wants to waste a peremptory on a candidate who should be bounced for cause.
The judge is already on the bench by the time Harry and I reach our table. “Mrs. Meyers,” he says, donning his glasses, “you are excused. Please report to the clerk’s office for further instructions.”
She stands and leaves the jury box, heads for the center aisle.
“And Mrs. Meyers…”
She stops and turns, looks up at Judge Gould. “Thank you,” he says. She nods and continues her retreat.
“Mr. Harmon and Mrs. Rowlands,” the judge says, “you may return to your seats in the gallery.”
They both look somewhat surprised as they leave the box and head for the benches. I don’t blame them. Impartiality is a slippery concept. And jury selection is a far cry from an exact science.
Dottie Bearse stands behind her desk, holding what looks like a small fishbowl. She draws consecutive slips of paper from it, reading a name from each, and one by one, fourteen potential jurors file into the box. Harry takes three blank sheets of legal-size paper from his file and hands two of them to me. Holliston looks hostile when I pass one to him with a pen. “It gets hard to keep them all straight after a while,” I explain to him. “You might want to jot down their names and seat numbers.”
His stare suggests I just asked him to draft a doctoral thesis in quantum physics. I turn away from him and face Dottie, who’s delivering copies of the selected jurors’ questionnaires to both tables. I divide my sheet into fourteen squares, each with a seat number, and fill in their names, ages, and occupations as the judge asks them all the boilerplate questions. Does anyone work for law enforcement or have a relative or close friend who does? Has anyone been the victim of a violent crime? Does anyone know someone who has been?
A couple of jurors are excused on the basis of their answers and Dottie pulls two more slips from her fishbowl. Robert Eastman and Alex Doane, both in their midfifties and wearing suits, fill the vacant seats. An investment banker and a nursing home administrator, both are dressed for work, hoping their time spent here today will be short, no doubt. Yes, they heard the questions asked of the others. No, neither of them has anything significant to report.
Judge Gould moves on to the legal standards jurors are expected to honor—the presumption of innocence, the burden of proof, the unanimous verdict. He asks if any of them will have difficulty accepting those parameters. Not a single hand goes up this time. Every last one of them plans to play by the rules. At this stage in the proceedings, most jurors believe they will.
The judge keeps Geraldine and Harry on a short leash as they ask their follow-up questions. In the end, neither of them has a valid challenge for cause as far as I can see, but Geraldine gets to her feet and announces she does. She always says she does. She can’t help herself. “Number eight, Your Honor, for cause.”