“The state’s attorney must ask that question, Mr. Hemus,” the Judge said sternly. “And you must answer it truthfully if you wish to serve on this jury.”
“Sure I’ve formed an opinion!” exploded the First Selectman. “So’s everybody else. That murderin’ tramp was caught practic’ly redhanded!”
Johnny apologized mentally to Judge Shinn, who was putting a handkerchief to his mouth. Get Hemus mad enough...
“But if the evidence should cast a reasonable doubt on the defendant’s guilt,” Adams asked quickly, “you would not vote to convict him, Mr. Hemus, even though as of this moment you’re convinced he’s guilty?”
And that nailed it to the record.
Hemus looked grateful. “Mr. Adams, I’m a fair man. If they convince me he’s not guilty, why, I’ll vote that way. But they got to convince me.”
Some of the women giggled.
“Let the record show that there was laughter from the panel at that last remark,” said the Judge to Elizabeth Sheare complacently. “There must be no demonstrations in the court! Proceed, Mr. Adams.”
Adams turned to old Andy Webster. “Does counsel wish to challenge?”
Ex-Judge Webster rose solemnly. “In view of the limited panel, your honor, I submit that the utilization of challenges during the selection of this jury would effectually prevent a jury from being selected. Consequently, if we are to have a trial — and I assume that to try Josef Kowalczyk for murder is what we are all here for — I cannot challenge and I do not challenge.”
Neatly done, thought Johnny as Andrew Webster sat down.
“Hubert Hemus will be entered as Juror Number One. Clerk will proceed with the panel.”
“Orville Pangman,” read Burney Hackett.
The comedy went on. By one device or another, between them Ferriss Adams and Andy Webster, with occasional help from Judge Shinn, maneuvered each panelist into admitting his bias for the record. None was challenged.
It went quickly. Orville Pangman was Juror Number Two. Merton Isbel was Juror Number Three. Burney Hackett read his own name and was disqualified. Mathilda Scott was Juror Number Four; neither her husband’s nor her father-in-law’s name was brought up. Peter Berry was Juror Number Five. The name of Hosey Lemmon was called; no one responded, and Lemmon was stricken from the rolls at the Judge’s direction.
Johnny awaited with curiosity the examination of Samuel Sheare. They had to ask the minister the same questions they were throwing at the others; and Adams did so.
“Have you formed an opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the defendant?”
“I have not,” said the minister in a firm voice.
Johnny looked around. But none of Mr. Sheare’s flock seemed resentful of their pastor’s affirmation of open-mindedness. They expected him to carry the burden of Christian charity as befitting his spiritual calling. Apparently they did not consider it possible that he might vote for an acquittal when the evidence should have been presented. There were sometimes advantages, Johnny grinned to himself, in dealing with single-track minds.
Mr. Sheare became Juror Number Six. He was not asked if he believed in capital punishment, and he did not volunteer a statement of his belief. Mr. Sheare had been got to, and Johnny, watching Judge Shinn’s bland benignity, thought he knew by whom.
Elizabeth Sheare was excused as not qualifying, since she was acting as court stenographer.
Rebecca Hemus, Millie Pangman, Emily Berry, and Prue Plummer were selected in rapid succession as Jurors Number Seven, Eight, Nine, and Ten, and they took their seats behind the six men in the jury “box.”
There was some difficulty in getting Calvin Waters to understand what he was being called upon to do. In the course of his examination the conspirators managed to get into the record the town handyman’s having fallen on his head as a baby, his lifelong reputation for dull-wittedness, and the fact that he was barely able to write and could read only a few simple words. Hube Hemus looked uncomfortable, but he voiced no objection.
Calvin Waters was recorded as Juror Number Eleven and duly shuffled to the fifth chair in the second row of jurors, his empty face momentarily filled with bewilderment.
“Continue, Mr. Clerk.”
“Sarah Isbel.”
She was the only one left in the spectators’ section except Johnny and Usher Peague.
At the reading of her name, Sarah Isbel went white. Merton Isbel was gathering himself, his craggy features stormy. The woman jumped up and said faintly, “I can’t serve on any jury. I have my child to...” The rest went away with her. When the front door banged, Merton Isbel sat down again.
“A member of a panel may not arbitrarily refuse to serve on a jury,” said Judge Shinn. “The bailiff will return Sarah Isbel to the courtroom.”
“Your honor.” The old farmer got up, rumbling. “I serve on no jury with her. Ye let the daughter of Sodom sit, I leave.”
The room was very quiet. Judge Shinn rubbed his chin as if here loomed a formidable problem. Then he said, “Very well, Mr. Isbel. I yield to necessity. There is no profit in gaining one juror while losing another. In view of your threat, Sarah Isbel is excused.”
And all this, Johnny thought with wonder, is going down in Elizabeth Sheare’s notebook. Yielding to necessity! Threats! It would undoubtedly make the most remarkable transcript in the history of American jury trials.
“Proceed, Mr. Clerk,” snapped Judge Shinn.
“I can’t, your honor,” said Burney Hackett feebly. “That’s all we got. Except for Mr. John Jacob Shinn, who got to be a property owner only this mornin’—”
“Oh, yes,” said the Judge, as if he had quite forgotten. “I said I’d make a special ruling on that, didn’t I? Because it appears, ladies and gentlemen, that unless we avail ourselves of the services of Mr. Shinn, we can’t satisfy the legal requirements of a twelve-person jury and therefore we can’t try the defendant in Shinn Corners.”
The jurors were staring at Johnny with distaste, whispering among themselves. Cruel, cruel the dilemma. Either a trial with a rank outsider sitting among them in a vital village affair, or no trial.
Judge Shinn waited.
And at last their heads inclined toward Hubert Hemus, and the First Selectman said something in an impatient undertone, and they all sank back, troubled but nodding.
The Judge promptly said: “So, although Mr. John Shinn is so newly in residence among us that he is not yet on the voting list from which the jury panel must be drawn, I rule that he may sit as a juror in this case if he otherwise qualifies.”
And there, thought Johnny as he went up to the witness chair assisted by a sly prod from Ush Peague’s pencil, is as grandly garbled a ruling as ever was delivered from a bench. How could a man otherwise qualify when the “otherwise” was what disqualified him?
Yes, he was familiar with the facts of the case. No, he had formed no opinion as to the defendant’s guilt or innocence... At this, in contrast to their genial sufferance when Samuel Sheare had made the same answer, the people of Shinn Corners glowered... And Andy Webster waved him cheerily away, and Johnny took the last vacant chair in the second row and immediately discovered that certain powerful emanations from the person and clothing of Laughing Waters were going to create a major problem of the case — for Juror Number Twelve, at any rate.
The last dreamlike development of the morning was Judge Shinn’s recessing of the trial in order to allow court, jurors, prosecutor, defense counsel, stenographer, and bailiff to attend the funeral of the victim whose alleged murderer they were in process of trying.
“Court will reconvene,” said the Judge, “at one P.M.”
Even the funeral had the quality of something seen in a dream. Or a play, Johnny thought. This might be Our Town, minus the rain. The burying ground was uneven, little swells of ground running into one another, with the bleached and blurry edges of the headstones sticking out of them in all directions, old, old, older-seeming than the soil that held them drearily. Johnny felt an unreasonable reluctance to setting foot among them.