Actually, it was a safe question, since Jill has worked this area to death, hoping to find a justifiable excuse to strike him. The U.S. Supreme Court has generally hacked away at the rights of criminal defendants for the last twenty-odd years, but it will no longer let a prosecutor get away with striking a black juror just on the mere assumption that the juror will be biased. If Jill tries to use one of her peremptory challenges to strike this guy, who, like Andy, lives in an integrated part of Blackwell County, she knows I will challenge her and put her to the test of offering a racially neutral explanation of her decision. Of course, if he were to admit to racial bias, he would not be allowed to serve, but this guy, whose breezy manner suggests he might swing a little if he got some pot or alcohol in him, says he likes everybody and everything. I doubt it, but since when has saying you’re an optimist been against the law?
It is the matter of interracial love and sex that naturally consumes the most time.
“Are you opposed to whites and African-Americans being involved romantically?” I ask a forty-six-year-old white mother of three who is temporarily at home raising her children.
Mrs. Hyslip, a red-haired woman who could be Rainey’s sister except for her large, rubbery lips, gives Andy an embarrassed glance and says, “Well, I’m from a small town, and that son of thing was frowned on when I was growing up.”
Since Arkansas is practically devoid of urban areas, she hasn’t said much, but she is no different from any other potential juror who has been asked that question. What I would love to know but don’t dare ask is whether she could ever imagine under the right circumstances being involved with a black male. Since the judge won’t strike anyone for cause who answers affirmatively (we couldn’t have a trial within the state), I have to ask if she could be fair and impartial in her deliberations knowing that the defendant and the mother of the dead girl had talked about marriage at one point in their relationship. To their enormous credit, five whites and one black answer that question honestly, and Judge Tamower strikes them for cause, saving me my peremptory challenges.
Mrs. Hyslip hesitates so long before answering and is so tentative before she says, “I’m pretty sure I could,” that I resolve to use one of our strikes.
Despite a long list of other questions designed to reveal their racial prejudices (Judge Tamower lets me ask all the clubs and organizations anyone has ever joined, including any groups that espouse the superiority of one race over an other), we move much faster than any of us thought we could;
and by eleven o’clock we have a jury composed of six white women, four white males, and two African-Americans, a man and a woman. Besides Bert Williams, Jill has failed to strike a middle-aged nurse at St. Thomas who squinted at me when the judge asked her if she knew me, but said she didn’t. I am betting she might have known Rosa and liked her and made the connection I was married to her. Still, a black woman on the jury makes me nervous. Will she, like Yettie Lindsey, punish Andy for wanting to marry a white woman? Picking a jury is little more than a crap game. I have used our peremptory challenges to keep off anybody I suspected of being a redneck. My rule of thumb, unscientific and prejudiced, is that if I had absolutely nothing else to go on and other things were equal, I struck whites who lived in the southwest part of the county. That area is considered the most racist, but I am glad I don’t have to offer a public ex planation. The Supreme Court has not as yet gone so far as to require lawyers for black defendants to offer a “racially neutral” explanation of why we choose to strike certain whites from the jury list.
Jill’s opening statement to the jury prepares them for the sermon she will give in her closing argument: the only thing less sacred than the bond between a child and her parents is the relationship between a child and her doctor. I am tempted to pretend I am gagging, but the jurors are instantly captivated by Jill’s manner, which is somehow preachy but effective because of her utter sincerity. As if she is in mourning, she is wearing a black dress, no jewelry, except for plain earrings barely visible underneath the shining, lustrous dark hair that is her only concession to femininity. Unlike some other female attorneys, who withdraw part of their retirement pensions to buy clothes and accessories for a big trial, Jill refuses to call attention to her striking features. Even her shoes, low-heeled black pumps, say to the jury that she is telling them a shocking story that deserves everyone’s respect and full attention. She comes from behind the podium and stands in front of the rail that runs in front of the jury box.
Stooping slightly she reviews the evidence she will present, staying away from a possible motive until just before she sits down.
“Mr. Page will tell you that Pam’s death was a terrible accident, but as you listen to the testimony, I want you to be thinking about what was occurring between Andrew Chap man and Olivia Le Master and what they had to gain by Pam’s death.”
I watch the jury’s faces as they hear her describe the malpractice settlement and Yettie Lindsey’s expected testimony. It is as if the issue of race were the last thing on Jill’s mind. Andy leans over and whispers to me, “She’s really good, isn’t she?”
Concentrating as hard as I can, I do not answer, but I want to tell him that a prosecutor doesn’t have to be great to keep a jury interested in this case. Yet this jury is hoping for the details, and they will be disappointed. There will be no description of any salacious practices that will have the spectators gasping with delight. Not for the first time I consider telling the jury that I, a small-town boy from eastern Arkansas was happily married until her death to a woman whose skin was almost as dark as that of two of its members that under the right conditions any of us might and do choose against all we’ve been taught and believed. Yet, as I study the jury, I lose courage. The risk is too great that some of the whites on the jury (maybe the blacks as well) might decide to punish me for presuming to preach a text few want to hear. It is enough that Andy is on trial; I don’t dare add to his burden. Instead I tell the jury a version some of them might be able to accept.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” I say standing at the podium after Jill has taken her seat, “what happened in this case is unfortunately what happens in real life: two people who have no need, desire, or intention of doing so fall in love and, instead of living happily ever after, see their lives become an unintended tragedy. Though I could give you a hundred examples from everything from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet to the tritest made-for-TV movie, we all know it happens in the most inappropriate of situations: it happens at work; it happens in wartime; it happens between neighbors; it hap pens in institutions for the retarded. The prosecuting attorney has painted a picture for you of a man who is so evil that he would take the life of a child to satisfy his own lust for a sexual relationship and money beyond his wildest dreams.
The truth is a lot less sensational but a lot more lifelike. The accident that I’m about to describe, which resulted in the death of the child of Olivia Le Master, has been emotionally devastating to her and to my client as well.” I come around the podium and grasp the jury rail.
“Because of our culture and our history in the South, some of you may be thinking, “So what?” since they should never have been involved with each other in the first place. But if you are and can’t get beyond this feeling simply to accept it as a reality, you won’t understand what happened in this case, and why my client and Olivia Le Master now feel as they do ” Behind me, Jill interrupts.
“I’m loath to break in. Your Honor,” she says, as I turn to her, “but Mr. Page is making a final argument instead of an opening statement.”