“Is he working with Jake Brigance?” Nevin asked, completely clueless.

“Looks like it.”

“Who are those other lawyers?”

“Who knows? There are so many lawyers around here these days. The square is full of them.”

A bailiff came to life and yelled, “All rise for the court. The Chancery Court of the Twenty-Fifth Judicial District of Mississippi, the Honorable Reuben V. Atlee presiding.” Judge Atlee appeared from the rear and assumed the bench while the crowd jumped to its feet.

“Please be seated,” he said. The crowd made a noisy retreat back onto the benches. He said hello and good morning and thanked the prospective jurors for being there, as if they had a choice. He explained that the first order of business was the selection of the jury, twelve jurors plus two alternates, and he figured that might take most of the day. At times things would move slowly, as they often do in court, and he asked for their patience. A clerk had written each of their names on a small piece of paper and put them in a plastic bin. He would pull them out at random, and that’s how the jurors would initially be seated. Once the first fifty were in place, the rest would be excused for the day, and maybe called back tomorrow if needed.

The courtroom had two sections, right and left of a center aisle, and each section had ten long benches that held about ten people each. Since the courtroom was at full capacity, Judge Atlee asked the rest of the spectators to please rise and clear out the first four rows to his left. This took a few minutes as people shuffled and stumbled and shoved about, uncertain where to go. Most stood along the walls. He reached into the plastic bin, extracted a name, and called out, “Mr. Nevin Dark.”

Nevin’s heart skipped a beat, but he stood and said, “Yes sir.”

“Good morning, Mr. Dark. Would you please sit over here on the first row, far to the left, and we’ll refer to you as Juror Number One for the time being.”

“Certainly.”

As Nevin walked down the aisle, he noticed the lawyers staring at him as if he’d just shot someone. He took his seat on the empty front row; the lawyers continued to stare. All of them.

Nevin Dark. White male, age fifty-three, farmer, one wife, two adult children, no church affiliation, no civic clubs, no college degree, no criminal record. Jake rated him as a seven. He and Portia looked at their notes. Harry Rex, who was standing in a corner by the jury box, studied his notes. Their model juror was a black male or female of any age, but there weren’t many in the crowd. At the contestants’ table, Wade Lanier and Lester Chilcott compared their research. Their model juror was a white female, age forty-five or older, someone raised in the deeply segregated old South and not the least bit tolerant of blacks. They liked Nevin Dark, though they knew nothing more about him than Jake did.

Number Two was Tracy McMillen, a secretary, white female, age thirty-one. Judge Atlee took his time unfolding the scraps of paper, studying the names, trying to pronounce them perfectly, allowing each to assume a new position. When the first row was filled, they moved to the second with Juror Number Eleven, one Sherry Benton, the first black to be called forth.

It took an hour to seat the first fifty. When they were in place, Judge Atlee excused the others and said they should remain on standby until further notice. Some of them left, but most stayed where they were and became part of the audience.

“Let’s recess for fifteen minutes,” the judge said, tapping his gavel as he lifted his cumbersome frame and waddled off the bench, black robe flowing behind. The lawyers gathered into frantic groups, all chattering at once. Jake, Portia, and Harry Rex went straight to the jury deliberation room, which was empty at the moment. As soon as Jake shut the door, Harry Rex said, “We’re screwed, you know that? A bad draw. Terrible, terrible.”

“Hang on,” Jake said, tossing his legal pad onto the table and cracking his knuckles.

Portia said, “We have eleven blacks out of fifty. Unfortunately, four of them are on the back row. Once again, we’re stuck on the back row.”

“Are you trying to be funny?” Harry Rex barked at her.

“Well, yes, I thought it was rather clever.”

Jake said, “Knock it off, okay? I doubt if we make it past number forty.”

“So do I,” replied Harry Rex. “And just for the record, I sued numbers seven, eighteen, thirty-one, thirty-six, and forty-seven, for divorce. They don’t know I’m working for you, Mr. Brigance, and once again I’m not sure why I am working for you because I’m damned sure not getting paid. It’s Monday morning, my office is filled with divorcing spouses, some of them carrying guns, and here I am hanging around the courtroom like Chuck Rhea and not getting paid.”

“Would you please shut up?” Jake growled.

“If you insist.”

“It’s not hopeless,” Jake said. “It’s not a good draw, but not completely hopeless.”

“I’ll bet Lanier and his boys are smiling right now.”

Portia said, “I don’t understand you guys. Why is it always black versus white? I looked at those people, those faces, and I didn’t see a bunch of hard-core racists who’ll burn the will and give everything to the other side. I saw some reasonable people out there.”

“And some unreasonable ones,” Harry Rex said.

“I agree with Portia, but we’re a long way from the final twelve. Let’s save the bickering for later.”

After the recess, the lawyers were allowed to move their chairs around to the other sides of their tables so they could stare at the panel while the panel stared right back. Judge Atlee assumed the bench without the ritual of “Please rise for the court” and began with a concise statement of the case. He said he expected the trial to last three or four days and that he certainly planned to be finished by Friday afternoon. He introduced the lawyers, all of them, but not the paralegals. Jake was alone, facing an army.

Judge Atlee explained that he would cover a few areas that had to be discussed, then he would allow the attorneys to question and probe. He began with health—anyone sick, facing treatment, or unable to sit and listen for long periods of time? One lady stood and said her husband was in the hospital in Tupelo and she needed to be there. “You are excused,” Judge Atlee said with great compassion, and she hustled out of the courtroom. Number twenty-nine, gone. Number forty had a herniated disk that had flared up over the weekend and he claimed to be in considerable pain. He was taking painkillers that made him quite drowsy. “You are excused,” Judge Atlee said.

He seemed perfectly willing to excuse anyone with a legitimate concern, but this proved not to be the case. When he asked about conflicts with work, a gentleman wearing a coat and a tie stood and said he simply could not be away from the office. He was a district manager for a company that made steel buildings, and was clearly an executive taken with his own importance. He even hinted he might lose his job. Judge Atlee’s lecture on civic responsibility lasted five minutes and scorched the gentleman. He ended with “If you lose your job, Mr. Crawford, let me know. I’ll subpoena your boss, put him on the stand here, and, well, he’ll have a bad day.”

Mr. Crawford sat down, thoroughly chastised and humiliated. There were no more efforts to skip jury duty on account of work. Judge Atlee then moved to the next issue on his checklist—prior jury service. Several said they had served before, three in state court and two in federal. Nothing about those experiences would alter their ability to deliberate in the case at hand.

Nine people claimed to know Jake Brigance. Four were former clients and they were excused. Two ladies attended the same church but felt as though that fact would not influence their judgment. They were not excused. A distant relative was. Carla’s schoolteacher friend said she knew Jake well and was too close for any objectivity. She was excused. The last was a high school pal from Karaway who admitted he hadn’t seen Jake in ten years. He was left on the panel, to be dealt with later.