“I want no nonsense in my courtroom, counselors, no funny tricks, no playing with the jury in any way, no improper procedures. I’ve never had a trial overturned, there has never been a mistrial in my courtroom, and I don’t intend this one to be the first. Is that clear?” Both women nodded and said, “Yes, Your Honor,” like dutiful children. “You have a client to defend,” he said, looking at Judy, “and you have eighteen victims to prove the defendant is responsible for killing. There is no more serious matter than this one. I don’t want any irresponsible shenanigans in my courtroom, or histrionics or unnecessary drama. And watch what you say to the press!” he admonished and dismissed them summarily.
Jury selection began half an hour later and seemed endless. Alexa sat at the prosecutor’s table flanked by Jack Jones on one side and Sam Lawrence on the other.
Alexa had come to respect Sam as they prepared the trial. He was a nitpicker, about everything. But she discovered rapidly that he was right, and he had made her even more careful than she normally was. They had shared lunch at her desk many times in the past months. He was in his fifties, she knew he had been a widower for years and had devoted his entire life to the FBI. She knew that when they won the case, it would be in part due to his help. He hated Quentin, and the case, and was as determined to put him away as Jack and Alexa and the DA. That was his only goal, she realized early on, not trying to screw her over or take the case away from her, even if the regional FBI director would have liked to. Senior Special Agent Sam Lawrence wanted the best person to do the job, and to prosecute the case, and Alexa had his full support. He smiled as she sat down next to him, and jury selection began.
It was a long, exhausting process. A hundred potential jurors had been selected, after all those were dismissed who were pregnant, sick, couldn’t get away from their jobs, spoke no English, were taking care of dying relatives, and had been able to come up with convincing reasons to be excused. And Alexa knew that there would be many more with similar excuses amid the hundred who sat crowded into the courtroom, praying they’d be sent away. The judge explained to all of them that it would be a long case, that it involved multiple homicides, and that testimony and arguments would go on for many weeks or even more than a month. Those to whom that presented an undue hardship, or had medical conditions that prevented them from serving, were to identify themselves to the clerk of the court. He pointed him out, and within minutes, there was a line of about twenty people standing in front of the clerk. The other eighty sat waiting expectantly to be questioned by both attorneys to see if they would qualify or be dismissed. Among them were people of all races, ages, both sexes, all of whom looked like ordinary people and were, everything from doctors to housewives, teachers to mailmen to students, all sat staring expectantly at Judy and Alexa.
Luke Quentin had been quietly brought in as the process began, wearing a suit, and he was neither shackled nor cuffed. Since he had shown no signs of violence during the months in jail, awaiting trial, he was allowed to appear like a civilized person, and not in handcuffs and chains, so as not to unduly influence the jury or make him look more menacing, although they knew what he was there for. Alexa noticed when she glanced cursorily at him that he was wearing a brand-new white shirt. She did not meet his eyes, but saw that Judy smiled a reassuring smile at him when he came in, and patted his arm when he sat down. He looked calm and collected and anything but scared, as his eyes roved over the jury, as though he were planning to pick them himself. Technically, he had the right to question them too, but Alexa doubted he would.
The first juror was Asian and misunderstood Alexa’s questions four times, and two of Judy’s, and was thanked and dismissed. The second was recently arrived from Puerto Rico, a young woman who looked terrified and said she had four children and two jobs and couldn’t stay, and she left too. Alexa knew the kind of juror she wanted, solid citizens, preferably of an age to be the parents of people the same age as their victims, and of course the parents of girls. The public defender was going to do everything in her power to keep them off the jury. It was a game where each attorney attempted to set the chess pieces up to her best advantage. The prosecution and defense each had twenty peremptory challenges, simply based on the fact that they didn’t like the answers to their questions. Relatives of law enforcement officers, or anyone too closely related to the legal or the criminal justice system, were rarely kept on juries. Cops themselves were dismissed, so were certain professions, notoriously lawyers, anyone who might be prejudiced, or who had a relative who had been murdered or the victim of a violent crime. They tried to weed out all forms of bias or excessive sympathy for either side. The process was laborious, and slow, and took the entire week, which Alexa had expected. She thought it might take even longer.
And during the entire process, Quentin sat quietly meeting each juror’s eyes, and either smiled at them or drove his eyes right through them. He seemed to alternate between an aura of intimidation and one of innocence and gentleness, or indifference. Most of the time, he ignored his defense counsel, although she leaned over to whisper explanations to him frequently, or ask him questions in notes. He would nod or shake his head. And at the prosecution table, Alexa consulted frequently with Sam and Jack, but most of the time she made her own decisions about the jurors she rejected or kept.
Two of the jurors were dismissed when they said they knew the judge, and he agreed, many claimed health problems, others wanted to serve but were not the jurors Alexa wanted, or Judy let them go because she felt, as Alexa did, that they would be likely to convict. It was a guessing game for both of them, and they could use only the material at hand, they couldn’t pull their ideal jurors out of a hat. They had to carefully assess how these people would react to the evidence, the crimes, and the defendant. It was an educated guessing process and at the same time a crapshoot, where you tried to divine human nature and predict how they would respond to what they heard, and if they would fully understand the rules that applied to them, which the judge would explain once the trial started. They had to convict beyond a reasonable doubt, or acquit. Their final decision had to be unanimous. All twelve had to agree, and anything less than that meant a hung jury. And the last thing both Judy and Alexa wanted was either a hung jury or a mistrial, and to have to try the case in front of a different jury all over again, although Quentin might have liked a mistrial, to stall the process of convicting him and sending him to prison forever.
The judge decided on the sentence, not the jury, and would do it a month after the verdict. The one thing they didn’t have to worry about was the death penalty. New York’s State Court of Appeals had overturned the death penalty in 2004, and had been battling motions to reinstate it in the years since. For the time being, there was no capital punishment in New York State. If convicted, Luke would serve life in prison without parole, but would not be sentenced to death. So the jury didn’t have the burden of knowing that their decision could cost his life, which made things a little easier for them. All of his other cases had been associated to the one in New York, and he was being tried for the rape and death of all eighteen women in this trial. He had been charged with eighteen counts of rape, and eighteen counts of first-degree murder, with malicious intent.
It was late Friday afternoon when twelve jurors had been selected, and four alternate jurors had been chosen, in case one of the regular jurors could not serve and had to be replaced. Of the twelve regular jurors, eight were men and four were women. Alexa didn’t mind that. She thought that men might be more protective of young women, more outraged by the crimes and more sympathetic, and angrier at Luke Quentin. She was counting on it. Four of them were old enough to have daughters that age, two were slightly younger than she wanted and would be hard to predict, but she had used up her challenges by the time they were selected. All were employed and seemed respectable and intelligent. Of the four women, all were older. Judy had objected to young women on the jury. But the four alternate jurors were mostly young women in their thirties. All races were represented, white, Hispanic, Asian, and African-American. Looking at them, Alexa was convinced they were a good jury and had worked hard to pick them, and get around some of Judy’s objections. Judy wanted men on the jury, because she thought they would be more sympathetic to Luke. Alexa didn’t agree, but in the end, they both liked the makeup of the jury. There were always loose cannons, and unpredictable surprises, but from what she could tell, with the knowledge they had of them, Alexa thought this jury was a good one. They would know after the trial.