From the Eyes of a Juror

  With his concerns jotted down in writing for prosperity, Newlan stepped out into the hallway, but much to his surprise neither Brandon nor Billy were anywhere to be found. Figuring that they couldn’t have wandered off too far, Newlan decided to go searching for the conspicuous court officers, and when he located the both of them, positioned outside of Judge Gershwin’s office, he waved them down and made his approach. However, when they realized that a possible wayward juror was roaming the corridors unattended they raced towards him and cut him off at the pass.

  The skittish reaction by Brandon and Billy had Newlan thinking that he had just entered an off-limits area of the courthouse, and in response, he fuzzily turned and gazed in every direction, including up at the ceiling, hoping to get his bearings straight.

  Why the sense of urgency from the court officers, Newlan would never find out, but in any event, Brandon snatched the index card out of his hand and slipped into Judge Gershwin’s chamber, while at the same time, Billy, who seemed to be upset about something, gently, but firmly, guided him back in the direction of the juror deliberation room.

  “I hope I’m not being a pain in the ass…you know, sending messages to the judge and all, but I thought that this might be an important issue,” confessed Newlan in a guilt-riddled tone.

  “Don’t worry about it…it’s not you I’m mad at,” retaliated Billy as he pushed open the door to the deliberation room and pointed Newlan towards the only empty seat available, which was located in the far corner, next to the bathroom.

  As soon as the door was closed behind them, Billy, who was never one for wasting time on formalities, barked out, “Alright, whose cell phone went off during DA Lyons’ opening statement? You weren’t listening again. I thought I made it clear to turn off all cell phones before entering the courtroom. Judge Gershwin was very upset with me.”

  Almost in unison, the jurors peered around the room, staring at each other in an accusatory manner, until finally the guilty party, a middle aged man with thinning gray hair, meekly raised his hand and admitted, “sorry, I meant to put it on vibrate.”

  “It doesn’t really matter whose phone it was…I told you, the first time a cell phone went off in the courtroom, I’m taking them all away,” snarled Billy as he grabbed a large plastic tray from under the table.

  “Everybody put your cell phones in here,” demanded Billy.

  “Can we use them on break?” asked one of the jurors.

  “You weren’t listening,” angrily repeated Billy again, “I told you that if I had to take the phones away from you, they’d be locked up all day.”

  “How about if we all promise to leave our phones in the deliberation room?” asked another juror, and with the ice broken, the barrage of questions and complaints began anew…and in the end Billy backed down.

  “All right, all right, I’ll give you a break this time. You can leave you cell phones in here. But there’ll be no more second chances. If I catch anyone in that courtroom with a cell phone, there’ll be hell to pay.”

  “I guess people can’t live without their cell phones these days,” muttered Newlan as he shook his head in disbelief over the commotion that everyone was making, while at the same time he thought to himself, “see, I knew Billy was a good guy…either that or he just got sick and tired of all the bitching and moaning, and he caved in so that everyone would shut up.”

  Newlan, who, as we have learned, didn’t own a cell phone, was finding the uproar that Billy’s proposed solution precipitated, to be rather humorous. However, the silent stares that his comment evoked from both Billy and his fellow jurors made him cognizant of the fact that he had hit a nerve, which in the end only encouraged him to come back with another wisecrack.

  “See what happens when you get too attached to something?” shot back Newlan, and then, as if a prophetic revelation had come to him like a dream, he added; “Which in a way is what this trial is all about isn’t it…getting too attached to something?”

  Again, Newlan’s remarks were met with stone cold silence by the jurors, with only Billy managing to ask, “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “You know…Breslin got too attached to his wife. And what a shocking crime that is,” replied the cynical Newlan.

  “But seriously, the funny thing is, I never even heard the phone go off,” disclosed Newlan with a smile after Billy had exited the room.

  “Oh I did,” replied the heavyset juror rather sarcastically.

  “I must have been engrossed in the opening statements. Either that or I was falling asleep…one or the other, too close to call I guess,” countered Newlan. At this point in the proceedings, he didn’t particularly care what he said or who he ticked off, especially since he was expecting an imminent departure any minute now, after a grueling one day of service.

  For the time being, the heavyset juror chose to ignore Newlan’s gibes, irritating though she found them to be, and instead she steered the subject towards her pet project of fostering juror openness.

  “By the way, isn’t it about time we go around the room and introduce ourselves? Come on, how about if we just give out our first names and our seat numbers…and maybe what we do for work. I’ll go first. My name is Jane…seat number 15. I live in Medford and, believe it or not, I’m a paralegal at a small law firm in Boston.”

  “So she is from Medford. Why the hell did she have to mention where she lives? Damn it, we might even know some of the same people. I hope to hell I get off this jury, but if not, I’m gonna stay clear of her. Man, you can’t make this shit up,” contemplated Newlan as he recalled his nemesis discussing bus routes to Medford yesterday while they were riding down to the lobby on the courthouse elevator.

  Jane was a 46 years old single parent of two teenage sons. Like most mothers, she had gained a few pounds after the birth of her children, but all in all, she was an attractive woman who spoiled herself with regularly scheduled beauty treatments, which accounted for her stylish mane of short, curly, auburn hair. And although she seemed to be giving Newlan a hard time, that didn’t stop her from noticing that he wasn’t wearing a wedding ring either.

  “With a little bit of work I bet I could whip him into shape,” silently surmised Jane as she stole a quick glance at the unkempt Newlan while at the same time pushing to keep the introductions moving along with a circular gesture of the hand.

  At Jane’s urging, the jurors promptly went clockwise around the room, verbally summarizing their laconic bios, starting with an extremely reserved woman who was seated to the left of Jane.

  “Hello I’m Lisa…seat number one, and I work as a waitress,” murmured the painfully shy woman who would hardly say a word throughout the course of the trial.

  Lisa was a tall, plain, single woman, roughly 42 years of age, and she too was secretly scanning the room for romantic possibilities. And just as Jane before her had done, she took notice of Newlan as well. But alas, she was much too bashful to do anything more than to merely fantasize about the magical scenarios that were playing out in her mind.

  “So do you get paid for being off of work?” asked Jane in a casual attempt at building a connecting bridge between her colleagues.

  “Oh no, I work the night shift. Actually, I’m heading straight to work as soon as I leave here,” replied Lisa in a voice so soft she could barely be heard.

  “Poor thing…that’s so unfair,” added a sympathetic Jane to a chorus of agreement.

  Next up was the kind-hearted elderly woman who had introduced herself to Newlan in the waiting room upon his delayed arrival earlier this morning.

  “Hi I’m Patty…seat number 5. I’m retired and I live with my daughter,” confided the pleasant senior citizen.

  Patty’s daughter was in her mid-thirties and still single, which had the matchmaking Patty constantly on the lookout for potential partners, and after her brief conversation with Newlan, she was already having visions that he might be a goo
d catch for her little girl.

  “I’m not going live forever you know, so she needs to get a life of her own. She’ll be alright…but she just needs a little nudge out the door,” rationalized Patty whenever she got together with her girlfriends for a night of Bingo. She truly did just want the best for her daughter, as any parent would, but she knew full well that it’s hard to let go sometimes, so she didn’t push too hard.

  Meanwhile, the sulky Newlan was obliviously staring out the window, totally unaware of the fact that he was being sized up by three potential suitors. To the contrary, as he sat listlessly in the corner of the room, he groused to himself; “Like I’m ever gonna be able to remember all of these peoples’ names. The trial will be over by the time that happens. Besides, with any luck I’m gonna be outta here in a few minutes.”

  Whether Newlan would actually be “outta there” in a few minutes remained to be seen, but as he whined in silence, Jane’s group hug continued its trek around the room and next in line was a plump 26 year old youngster who had been gifted with beautiful, shoulder length, flaxen hair.

  “Hello I’m Joanne…seat number 10, and I work at the local air force base. I’m a civilian, but I help out by getting all of the soldiers gear organized…boots, uniforms, stuff like that,” explained the buxom blond.

  Joanne was also single, although she did have a steady boyfriend; a boyfriend who was none too happy to learn about her involvement in the case. Unfortunately, the trial was going to seriously cut into their quality time, and even though she thought he was acting childish, the truth of the matter was that she wasn’t much looking forward to spending the next few weeks stuck with all of these “older” people either.

  However, childish steady boyfriend or not, that didn’t stop Joanne from eyeballing the other twenty-something juror; the tall, skinny kid who was sitting next to Newlan; the same guy who fought like the Dickens with Judge Gershwin in an attempt to get himself removed from the case.

  And while Joanne’s wandering mind conceived a soap opera scene of her own, the procession of condensed personal sketches steamed ahead.

  “Hi I’m Jim…seat number 6. I work for a telecommunications company right down the road from here,” imparted the next juror in the roundtable array.

  Jim, a short, stocky, 48 years old ex-soldier, was the proud father of an infant son. Apparently, he and his wife had resigned themselves to being a childless couple, when out of the blue, their miracle bundle of joy unexpectedly arrived. And although he would never dare show his true emotions, much like Newlan, Jim had his own fearful trepidations regarding the trial.

  Seated next to Jim was the distracted juror who had the unfortunate incident with the cell phone, and he started off his introduction by stating, “First of all, once again, my apologies about the cell phone. I’m Peter…seat number 12…I’m a software engineer for a large company based in California.”

  Peter, a 56 years old father of four, was a brilliant man, but, like many an Einstein before him, at times, he too was a bit absentminded, as proven by his forgetfulness when it came to turning off his cell phone in the courtroom.

  Huddled next to Peter was the soft-spoken woman who Newlan so callously referred to as the “Ice Princess.”

  “Hi I’m Natalie…seat number 7… and I work as an editor for a local magazine.”

  Natalie was so painfully demure that she stared down at the table the entire time she spoke.

  “She’s either very shy of very antisocial,” thought Jane of her fellow juror while at the same time Newlan didn’t know what to make of this alluring yet seemingly insecure woman. But despite her personality profile, he did perk up when Natalie spoke.

  “I won’t forget her name. Now I kinda wish I wasn’t getting myself kicked off the case. Hey, even though she has a ring on…you never know,” daydreamed Newlan, even though he did indeed know for a fact that, based on first impressions, there was virtually no chance he was ever going to hit it off with the juror in seat number 7.

  Natalie was 44 years old and, unbeknownst to Newlan, although she had been married for less than a year, she was already experiencing marital problems, so maybe his chances weren’t as far-fetched as he might have thought.

  But regardless of Natalie’s standoffish nature, there was no questioning the fact that she was a beautiful woman. She was blessed with silky brown hair which flowed freely down past the nape of her back, and she also possessed a shapely figure which Newlan couldn’t help but notice, seeing as how she was standing directly in front of him when they walked into the courtroom.

  And while Newlan was busily getting lost in his own little fantasy world, next up on the agenda was a woman who, based on her seat number, stood directly behind him in the courtroom lineup marching order, and like everyone else, she kept her introduction brief.

  “Hi I’m Pam…seat number 9. I work as a freelance web designer.”

  As far as Newlan was concerned, Pam’s location in the jury box was unquestionably the worst seat in the house because, unfortunately for her, the luck of the draw had placed her at the near end of the front row, as close as you could possibly get to the audience.

  Pam was a statuesque woman who kept her jet black hair neatly cropped. She was soon to be 59 years old and she had diligently raised two fine children; and, like Newlan and many of her colleagues, Pam had never before served as trial juror.

  Newlan thanked his lucky stars that he didn’t end up in Pam’s seat number 9, or in Linda’s seat number 1 for that matter; because, if the seating arrangements had turned out as such, it would have made it virtually impossible for him to keep to his much touted low profile.

  And even though Newlan was supremely confident that his seat location wasn’t going to matter much longer, he politely listened in, as positioned next to Pam sat a gregarious fifty-something year old man who, based on their non-stop conversation, appeared to have befriended her. However, despite their budding admiration for each other, he did manage to break off their engaging discussion long enough to say; “Hello I’m Stan…seat number 14, and I work in the sales department for a local software company.”

  Stan was a happily married father of three children, all of whom were either still in high school or college. And furthermore, he was quite the congenial sort, as proven by his tireless chatter aimed in Pam’s direction. He had been affably talking her up all morning; primarily for no reason other than the fact that perchance she just so happened to be seated next to him at the deliberation room table.

  Next to Stan sat the elderly woman who occupied the elevator with Jane and Newlan as it delivered them down to the ground floor yesterday afternoon.

  “Hi my name is Annie…seat number 13. I work in the HR department as a payroll clerk for a temp employment agency,” reported the jittery little woman who at the moment seemed to be experiencing some sort of discomfort.

  Annie was a 62 years old single mother of two grown daughters, and she brandished an unruly head of spiky hair which she had dyed in a flaming reddish tint. And on top of that, she bore a fiery disposition which matched her hair color quite nicely; it was an attitude that Newlan would come to admire very much. Annie lived alone, and although she didn’t talk much about herself, she would gladly offer you an opinion on just about any other topic, which would soon become evident as the trial moved forward.

  Annie, we might remember, was the same juror who had vehemently protested that there would be trouble ahead if she weren’t allowed to go outside for the occasional cigarette break, and so not surprisingly, her currently distressed disposition was apparently being caused by her craving for a nicotine fix. Of the 16 jurors, she was the only one who smoked cigarettes, but nonetheless many a juror would later thank her for fighting for their right to get some fresh air during lunch hour.

  Seated in the back of the room next to Newlan was the lanky juror who had tried so desperately to convince Judge Gershwin to excuse him from the trial (h
e was also the same young man who was being secretly admired by Joanne, the other twenty-something juror).

  “Hi I’m Mark…seat number 4. I work in the network security group for a large computer hardware company.”

  Mark was a tall, spindly, 29 years old young adult who maintained a neatly cropped crown of dark brown hair. He had recently gotten married, and the happy couple was already the proud parents of a 10 month old son and another on the way.

  Needless to say, Mark was very busy these days. But now that he had resigned himself to the fact that there was no getting out of his predicament, he had taken the attitude that he just wanted to get the trial over with as soon as possible so that he could move on with his life. In sharp contrast to Newlan, Mark was the type of person who could focus forward on the future and never look back.

  “What happened up there with the judge yesterday morning?” whispered Newlan after Mark had completed his concise introduction.

  “I’d rather not talk about,” replied Mark with a smile. “Let’s just put it this way…I pleaded my case and she didn’t buy it, so here I am.”

  “I hear you. She’s kinda intimidating,” agreed Newlan, and he then gave Mark a sly wink as he added, “but I haven’t given up trying just yet.”

  Up next was Newlan. However, with thoughts of an impending dismissal from the trial clogging his mind, he didn’t much feel like participating in Jane’s familiarization charade, although in the end he conformed as he usually did.

  “Hi I’m Frank…seat number 8. I work as a programmer/analyst at a local university,” announced Newlan, albeit rather unenthusiastically.

  “Oh really, my brother is the Dean of Student Affairs at Tafts University,” nonchalantly retorted Jane, and although she meant no harm, this seemingly irrelevant tidbit of information was the last thing that Newlan wanted to hear from her. And furthermore, he was stunned and tongue-tied by the latest in what would turn out to be a long line of many not-so-happy synchronous revelations.

  “Oh shit, her brother works at Tafts, that’s all I need is for her to somehow find out my identity,” silently lamented Newlan as he struggled to keep his cool.

  Tafts was a large university which employed a couple of thousand people, so the chances of Newlan being acquainted with Jane’s brother were moderately slim. But nevertheless he had a faint recollection of crossing paths with the person who held that job title once or twice over the years at various project meetings, and he felt his face turning a beet red as he stammered, “Oh…really…we’ll have to talk about that…later…sometime.”

  However, deep inside what Newlan was really thinking was; “my cover’s definitely gonna be blown if this keeps up. Please dead God let Judge Gershwin remove me from the case…and the sooner the better.”

  But despite Newlan’s trivial concerns, the introductions continued on in earnest.

  On the other side of the room diagonally across from Newlan, sat two more male jurors who, for whatever reason, also chose to sit away from the main conference room table which was more than big enough to seat all 16 jurors.

  The first of the two men waved and pleasantly proclaimed, “Hello I’m Ron…seat number 11…I’m an assistant branch manager for a local bank.”

  Ron was 47 years old, and although he had been married for over 20 years, he and his wife were childless by choice. Ron dressed the part of a banker; he showed up to the courthouse wearing finely tailored suits just about every day, and when you paired the wardrobe with his trendy glasses and the few strands of gray running through his thinning black hair, it only added to the distinguished air he carried about him.

  Ron’s facial expressions and mannerisms uncannily reminded Newlan of one of his own childhood friends, James Leach, who, believe it or not, ended up joining the Medford Police force about 15 years ago.

  Even after all these years, whenever Newlan bumped into Leach patrolling around town in his cop uniform, he’d think back on all the crazy things that they use to do in their younger days, and he’d invariably wind up mumbling to himself, “…and this guy’s a Medford cop now…God help us all!”

  But in spite of Newlan’s childhood musings, the census rolled on, and next to Ron sat a short, stocky, buttoned-up gentleman who was sporting a handlebar moustache, as well as a proposition.

  “Hi I’m Mike…seat number 2. I work in the sales department for a local auto dealership so if anyone needs a car, please let me know.”

  “Typical salesman always working the house,” silently groused Newlan, but then without thinking, he blurted out, “I’ll have to get your card…my old jalopy has seen better days, so who knows, I may just take you up on your offer.”

  Sensing a sale in the works, Mike promptly passed a business card over to Newlan who figured that since his car was pretty beat-up, it never hurts to know someone “in the business” as they say.

  “Unlike me, I guess Mike doesn’t mind divulging his full name. Maybe I’m just being paranoid as usual,” pondered Newlan regarding one of his many internal phobias which, at this point in his life, were too ingrained for him to do anything about, other than to learn to live with them.

  Mike was a 58 years old father of four grown sons, and even though he purposely dressed conservatively for his courtroom duties, Newlan had him pegged as the biker type.

  “Must be the moustache,” speculated Newlan, and although his stream of consciousness hypotheses were usually based on irrational premises, his first impressions were often times more accurate than even he could ever have predicted.

  In Newlan’s opinion, Mike’s personality seemed a bit too low-key for a car salesman. However, although his demeanor as it related to his profession was open to debate, there was no denying the fact that, like Linda the waitress before him, he would rarely say a word throughout the course of the trial, preferring instead to sit in the corner and placidly observe the proceedings.

  Of course, Mike’s quietness didn’t stop him from passing out his business card to each and every person in the room. And while he went about his business, sitting back at the main table, waiting to make her introductions, was none other than the oriental woman whom Newlan had become remotely acquainted with by virtue of her incessant gossiping in the waiting line yesterday morning.

  “Hello I’m Yong…seat number 3. I work as an office assistant for a large company.”

  Yong’s words were conveyed with a touch of shyness, not to mention a pronounced accent.

  You see, Yong was a 37 year old immigrant from communist North Korea. Although apparently she wasn’t so shy when it came to relationships, seeing as how she was currently working on her second marriage here in the US; and in both instances, she ended up tying the knot with a wealthy American man. How she was able to escape North Korea was a mystery for another day, but much like Saeed Kahn, she was haunted by a painful past that she cared not to talk about.

  Yong and her second husband had two pre-teen children who, according to her, were exceptional athletes; her daughter played in the local youth soccer league and her son was an all-star little leaguer. All in all you might say that Yong had indoctrinated herself quite nicely into the American way of life, and in this regard, she was on the polar opposite end of the spectrum from Newlan’s bitter neighbor.

  And finally, last but not least, to the right of Jane sat the handicapped juror; he had already won over the hearts of his fellow jurors just by dint of his tenacious positive attitude alone, and as such, it should come as no surprise that he waved genially at his new colleagues and exclaimed, “Hello I’m Dan…seat number 16. I work as an accountant for a mutual fund company.”

  Dan was 39 years old and like Newlan, still single. But despite his handicap, Dan was quite independent and active; he drove his own specially equipped Ford Taurus sedan, and he never once asked for any preferential treatment throughout the course of trial (or in his life in general for that matter).

  Dan was paralyze
d from the waist down, but he was able to get around fairly well with just the use of his arms. How he came to be in a wheelchair, whether it was some sort of accident or whether he was handicapped from birth, the jurors would never know, since he never offered any information on the subject, and out of respect, none of them dared to ask; for like the secrets of Saeed Kahn and Yong before him, perhaps some tales are better left untold.

  For his part, Newlan viewed Dan with a mix of admiration and pity; and of course the latter sentiment is precisely the posture that the disabled population generally doesn’t want to hear from the non-handicapped. In truth, all of the jurors’ feelings were similar to Newlan’s, but luckily they had the common sense and decency to keep their thoughts to themselves.

  Empathy for Dan aside however, now that the introductions were at last completed, Newlan took a moment to appraise the group as a whole.

  “Interesting bunch of people; mostly intelligent, conservative, middle-class professionals, many who work in high-tech jobs. I wonder whether we fit into a specific profile that the attorneys were looking for.”

  A handful of jurors were throwing around similar comments as they chatted amicably amongst themselves, but Newlan preferred to keep his own thoughts on the down-low for the moment, primarily because he believed that he would soon be leaving the team for good.

  And although Newlan’s many beliefs may have had some validity to them, juror profiling was the furthest thing from his mind when at a few minutes before noon Billy barged back into the room and pointed directly at him.

  “You…come with me and bring all your belongings,” ordered Billy, and Newlan complied without hesitation. As a matter of fact, he jumped up enthusiastically and cordially waved to his colleagues as he left the room.

  Newlan was practically giddy with joy and he had the urge to say, “nice knowing ya” or maybe even, “see ya, wouldn’t wanna be ya” on his way out the door, but he prudently resisted the temptation.

  And yet despite his self-absorbed jubilation, as he rose to leave the room, Newlan did happen to notice Jane putting on a pouting facial expression aimed in his direction, as if to say that she was sorry to see him go.

  “See, she’s gonna miss me after all,” surmised Newlan, However, now that he was experiencing a sudden sense of euphoric reprieve, he was determined not to look back. He had already spent way too much time in his life looking back, and it was high-time he changed his ways.

  But surely, as we all know, some resolutions are easier said than done, and for Frank Newlan, old habits were hard to break. He had to look back. He always looked back. And so, just as the door was closing behind him, for some inexplicable reason, he crooked his head and took one last peek inside the deliberation room. However, what he saw wasn’t a roomful of strangers; what he saw weren’t the stares of fifteen impassive faces; what he saw wasn’t an uncertain future; a future that he had just barely managed to escape.

  No, what Newlan saw instead…were the remnants of a past…that just would not let him be.