Rogue Lawyer by John Grisham

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Categories	Thrillers & Suspense
Author	John Grisham
Publisher	Anchor; Reprint edition (July 26, 2016)
Language	English
Paperback	352 pages
Item Weight	8.8 ounces
Dimensions	5.26 x 0.73 x 7.99 inches

I. Book introduction

Rogue Lawyer is a novel by John Grisham. It was released in hardcover, large print paperback, e-book, compact disc audiobook and downloadable audiobook on October 20, 2015. It is a legal thriller about unconventional street lawyer Sebastian Rudd. In November 2015, the novel was at the top of the New York Times Fiction Best Seller for two weeks. The name “Max Mancini”, Rudd’s City Attorney adversary in the story, was chosen as a result of a fund-raising auction for the charity Reprieve.

The February 4, 2016 reading of the book was the final book read on The Radio Reader before the May 5 death of host Dick Estell.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Featuring one of John Grisham’s most colorful, outrageous, and vividly drawn characters yet, Rogue Lawyer showcases the master of the legal thriller at his very best.

On the right side of the law—sort of—Sebastian Rudd is not your typical street lawyer. His office is a customized bulletproof van, complete with Wi-Fi, a bar, a small fridge, and fine leather chairs. He has no firm, no partners, and only one employee: his heavily armed driver, who also so happens to be his bodyguard, law clerk, confidant, and golf caddie. Sebastian drinks small-batch bourbon and carries a gun. He defends people other lawyers won’t go near: a drug-addled, tattooed kid rumored to be in a satanic cult; a vicious crime lord on death row; a homeowner arrested for shooting at a SWAT team that mistakenly invaded his house. Why these clients? Because Sebastian believes everyone is entitled to a fair trial—even if he has to bend the law to secure one.

Plot

Sebastian Rudd is a street lawyer, but not your typical street lawyer. His office is a black customized bulletproof van, complete with Wi-Fi, a bar, a small fridge, and fine leather chairs. He has no firm, no partners, and only one employee: his heavily armed driver, who used to be his client, and who also happens to be his bodyguard, law clerk, confidant, golf caddie, and his only friend. Sebastian drinks small-batch bourbon and carries a gun. His beautiful ex-wife is a lawyer too, and she left him for another woman while still they were married. He only gets to see his son for 36 hours per month and his ex-wife wants to stop all visits. He defends people other lawyers won’t go near: a drug-addled, tattooed kid rumored to be in a satanic cult who is (falsely) accused of murdering two girls; a vicious crime lord on death row who ends up escaping before Rudd’s eyes; a homeowner arrested for shooting at a SWAT team that mistakenly invaded his house, and killed his wife and dogs; a Mixed martial arts fighter previously financed by Rudd who killed a referee after losing a fight. In between these adventures, he’s contacted by a serial kidnapper and killer who’s involved in human trafficking, and knows the whereabouts of the assistant chief of police’s missing daughter.

Editorial Reviews

• “Terrific…Grisham, can still devise distinctive characters, tricky legal predicaments and rogueishly cheating ways to worm out of them.” —Maureen Corrigan, The Washington Post
• “Sebastian Rudd is a kind of social justice warrior and Grisham uses him to take jabs at the legal system…all with a blunt, rude, gravelly poetic wise guy voice that makes Rudd come across as a kind of 21st-century Philip Marlowe.” —Benjamin Percy, The New York Times Book Review

About John Grisham

John Grisham (born February 8, 1955 in Jonesboro, Arkansas) is an American novelist, lawyer and former member of the 7th district of the Mississippi House of Representatives, known for his popular legal thrillers. According to the American Academy of Achievement, Grisham has written 28 consecutive number-one fiction bestsellers, and his books have sold 300 million copies worldwide. Along with Tom Clancy and J. K. Rowling, Grisham is one of only three authors to have sold two million copies on a first printing.

Grisham graduated from Mississippi State University and earned a Juris Doctor from the University of Mississippi School of Law in 1981. He practised criminal law for about a decade and served in the Mississippi House of Representatives from 1983 to 1990.

Grisham’s first novel, A Time to Kill, was published in June 1989, four years after he began writing it. Grisham’s first bestseller, The Firm, sold more than seven million copies. The book was adapted into a 1993 feature film of the same name, starring Tom Cruise, and a 2012 TV series which continues the story ten years after the events of the film and novel. Seven of his other novels have also been adapted into films:

• The Chamber,
• The Client,
• A Painted House,
• The Pelican Brief,
• The Rainmaker,
• The Runaway Jury, and Skipping Christmas.

Grisham is a two-time winner of the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction and was honored with the Library of Congress Creative Achievement Award for Fiction.

When he’s not writing, Grisham serves on the board of directors of the Innocence Project and of Centurion Ministries, two national organizations dedicated to exonerating those who have been wrongfully convicted. Much of his fiction explores deep-seated problems in our criminal justice system.

John Girsham lives on a farm in central Virginia.

II. Reviewer: Rogue Lawyer

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1. NANCY BRISSON reviews for Rogue Lawyer

Being Legally Principled Leads Sebastian Rudd into a Fugitive Existence

John Grisham has been a favorite of mine over the years. He tells a good story and he always exposes something about the legal system. He has touched on injustices and outright crimes perpetrated by law firms, lawyers, public defenders, public prosecutors, judges and juries; bad behavior that is rampant throughout our legal system. When he fights a particular flaw in our legal system, as he does in almost every one of the novels he has written, we are not at all surprised by the revelations he offers. We know that the system can be fair and that it can be corrupt, and we suspect that it is corrupt more often than it is fair. John Grisham also likes lawyers who are loners, who work on the fringes of the system in small offices and shopping malls. His main character is often a principled lawyer who fights the system when corruption has taken over and made it difficult for folks to get justice.

In his newest book, Rogue Lawyer, we meet Sebastian Rudd, a street lawyer. He does not have a stationary office. His office is in the back of a tricked out van. He defends people who no one else wants to defend because of their obvious guilt or because s/he has been declared guilty by a system that is often only too glad to jump to conclusions. The first client we meet in the book is Gardy, probably an innocent man who the system has already decided, with almost no evidence, is guilty. Sebastian (Grisham) wants Gardy to have a fair trial but in the very small town where the crime was committed a fair trial will be almost impossible. Sebastian, because feelings are running high, stays in different motel rooms at some distance from the town changing motels as often as necessary.

Mr. Rudd says, “The truth is, if I had the money, the time, and the personnel, I would bribe and/or intimidate every juror. When the State, with its limitless resources, commences a fraudulent case and cheats at every turn, then cheating is legitimized. There is no level playing field. There is no fairness. The only honorable alternative for a lawyer fighting to save an innocent client is to cheat defense.

However, if a defense lawyer is caught cheating, he or she gets nailed with sanctions by the court, reprimanded by the state bar association, maybe even indicted. If a prosecutor gets caught cheating, he either gets reelected or elevated to the bench. Our system never holds a bad prosecutor accountable.”

And this is not the only claim Sebastian Rudd, our rogue lawyer, levels against the system. We follow him and his partner/bodyguard/driver cleverly named Partner as he tackles several interesting cases each an example of ways that people in positions of power have found to use and abuse their position to the detriment of our entire legal system. In one of his cases we have the Renfro’s, victims of a commando style police raid on the wrong house, who face jail time because the police will never admit that they were wrong in their intelligence and that their arrest procedures were drastically over-the-top. In another case he was the lawyer for a ganged up guy named Link who is on death row when he manages to escape using his guys on the outside and who now wants his lawyer, Sebastian Rudd, to pay him back all the fees he paid to the lawyer because he was not successful in his defense of Link.

We have an ex-wife who is always trying to terminate Rudd’s brief visitations with his son (his job is quite dangerous). We have the MMA fighter who goes from being under Rudd’s patronage to being his client in a self-destructive moment. And although this book is short and has a lot of white space it still manages to get us involved in Sebastian Rudd’s life and to remind us of how easy it is for our legal system to go off the rails. Except for these lone fighters that John Grisham presents us with, we are given few clues about how to reform the system. Still I leave each of Grisham’s novels full of righteous anger about how the law is being twisted into something far less that the ideals the system was set up to offer.

2. RONALD H.CLARK reviews for Rogue Lawyer

A view of criminal justice from the very bottom up

I have read almost all of Grisham’s adult legal novels. I don’t think this is the best grade Grisham, but it certainly is engrossing. In evaluating Grisham’s body of work, we must recognize that Grisham today, living the good life in the Virginia wine country near Charlottesville, is not the novice novelist knocking out his first books in Oxford, Mississippi. Those early books were based on excitement that grabbed the reader and held him until the last page. What could beat “The Firm” or “The Pelican Brief” for raw excitement building to a gripping climax. Now with a much larger body of work behind him, abundant financial rewards, my theory is that Grisham in his more recent novels has undertaken to use his now maturing skills as a novelist to (pardon the expression) “educate” the reader as to how the legal systems works or fails to work in its various dimensions.

For example, his recent novels have focused on topics such as the mass torts bar and how it operates; public interest lawyers fighting for the environment in rural West Virginia; the shortcoming of the jury system; the deficiencies of the death penalty; and the misuse of confessions. This trend continues in this novel about a “rogue lawyer” who handles sickening criminal cases other lawyers refuse for fear of condemnation and career injury. One interesting departure from his previous novels is that this book is really five individual stories (with some overlap) told sequentially. Each story allows Grisham an individual stage to focus upon separate aspects of how the legal system operates.

The sorry condition of the criminal justice system in this country is the main common theme. Given Grisham’s extensive career practicing criminal law, he speaks with some authority in this area. Fair criminal trials are largely a myth; dishonest cops and ambitious prosecutors manufacture evidence in trials presided over by inept judges held before befuddled juries. Prisons present their own problems since many of the convicts were sentenced to excessive terms for non-violent crimes (an area that President Obama is currently addressing). Abuses of SWAT teams is another area that pops up, as does the unfairness of freezing defendant resources before trial. Expert witnesses (of which I am one on occasion) also come in for serious Grisham scorn. And an old favorite topic of Grisham, the bizarre world of plea bargaining, also makes an appearance.

The book builds toward a dynamic conclusion as do most of its predecessors–but a surprise element arises out of the blue to spoil a “happy” ending. We also learn about some new topics (at least for me) such as volitional insantiy and sexual bondage. One great feature is that Grisham takes the reader through an entire condensed criminal trial. From my own experience as a (federal) prosecutor and college professor, criminal trials that go on all around us are really only understood by very few. As a novelist, Grisham just continues to develop his skills in constructing plots and recounting dialogue. This is just a very fine story on top of everything else.

3. JAMES THANE reviews for Rogue Lawyer

I’ve always been a fan of John Grisham’s legal thrillers, but I was a bit disappointed in the last one that I read, Gray Mountain, which I thought was a bit preachy with characters that weren’t all that interesting. This book is, to my mind at least, a lot more fun, and I devoured it in a couple of sessions.

The protagonist is a lawyer named Sebastian Rudd who works out of a bulletproof van after his last “real” office was firebombed. He has one employee, a bodyguard and general assistant, who drives him from appointment to appointment and who attempts to protect him from the large numbers of people on both sides of the law who would like to do him harm. He has an ex-wife to whom he was briefly married before she left him for her gay lover. But the two did manage to conceive a son that Rudd gets to see for a few hours a month, and one of his principal legal challenges is to fend off his vindictive ex-wife who would prefer that Rudd not get to see their son at all. He is also invested in a young cage fighter who appears to have a very bright future.

The cops and prosecutors hate Rudd because he usually defends the scum of the earth. For example, as the book opens, he’s defending a tattooed kid with multiple piercings and a very low IQ, who’s been accused of the brutal murder of two little girls. There’s precious little evidence to actually link the kid to the crime, but the cops and the prosecutors are determined to railroad him to a death sentence and they’ve convinced practically everyone in town that the kid is guilty.

In another case, Rudd is defending a brutal killer who has already been convicted and is on death row, and in consequence he’s not a very popular guy with the general public either. Truth to tell, the argument that in America everyone deserves a fair trial and legal representation is generally lost on a large segment of the public who assume that the police would never arrest the wrong person and that the accused parties should just be strung from the nearest tree ASAP, constitutional niceties be damned.

Unlike a lot of legal thrillers that focus on a single case throughout, this book follows Rudd from one case to another and the cases bleed into each other as they would in the real world. I found Rudd to be a fascinating character, flaws and all, and I loved watching him work in and out of court. The cases themselves were very interesting and I really hope that Grisham has another Sebastian Rudd novel in his future.

4. PAUL WEISS reviews for Rogue Lawyer

A five-star blend of story-telling, character building and provocative essay-writing!

Sebastian Rudd is John Grisham’s latest creation – a noir, anti-hero fully loaded with personal baggage – an untended libido, a son that he adores, and a bisexual ex-wife who can only be characterized as a mean-spirited, vengeful witch; a high-powered criminal defense lawyer who, like Michael Connelly’s Mickey Haller, THE LINCOLN LAWYER, works out of his vehicle and is despised by the bench, his colleagues and even his clients; and a driven character, like Preston and Child’s Aloysius Pendergast (RELIC), whose morality is flexible and fluid and for whom justice and the law are not only different concepts but are often mutually exclusive! Here’s a toast to Grisham’s success with the new boy on the block and a wish that he’ll be returning for an encore performance sooner than later.

ROGUE LAWYER is not a legal thriller in the form that most lovers of the genre might expect. Rather than crafting a single plot with one or two sub-plots coming along for the ride, Grisham has really crafted five or six short stories and inter-woven them, letting them weave in and out of each other and unfold concurrently in real time. The reader, in effect, joins Sebastian Rudd working out of his mobile office van and is given a day to day peek into a proverbial “year in the life” of a colorful, off-the-wall defense attorney. Rudd’s clients run the gamut from psychopathic gutter scum to that stereotypical defendant who’s being framed and each case provides a backdrop against which Grisham can also award his readers with thoughtful, provocative essays on a myriad of legal topics – capital punishment and death row, jury tampering, the militarization of police in the USA, breaching lawyer-client confidentiality, human trafficking, racketeering, liability for wrongful death, divorce and more.

This is not top end literary material destined for shelving with the classics but it has to be said that it is a good deal more than temporarily diverting brain candy. And, even better, it’s gripping, compelling, page-turning stuff that pulled me through the entire novel in only two sittings.

Highly recommended.

5. MATTHEW reviews for Rogue Lawyer

Usually I keep up with the John Grisham books as they are released, but I missed this one when it came out. Lately it has felt like the Grisham I have been reading is more “miss” than “hit”. Thankfully, I can say that Rogue Lawyer was a hit!

I really don’t have any complaints about this book. The fact that it is a series of shorter stories all in the life of the titular character keeps the pace quick and interesting. The uniqueness of the storylines makes me wonder if Grisham researched weird and shocking legal cases and then modified them to fit into his overall plot. Or maybe he hit his creative groove in coming up with some out of the ordinary situations. Either way, it was fun to read.

If you are a Grisham or legal thriller fan, I can easily recommend this book if you are looking for something to read. I am hoping that Grisham ends up doing more like this one.

6. JACW2000 reviews for Rogue Lawyer

Innocent until proven guilty. Isn’t that the theory? Which means that the lawyer for the defense simply has to show the holes in the prosecutor’s arguments and his client is released.

Not so simple…

Sebastian Rudd defends accused people. Those who are clearly guilty as hell. And those who are innocent but are being railroaded onto death row. It isn’t a healthy way to make a living.

Set in an unspecified US city where high level corruption makes him persona no grata – the cops cheat, the mayor cheats, but Rudd cheats better than any of them. He wins more than he loses. But that doesn’t mean anything.

What can I say about John Grisham? One of the most successful authors in the world. There are dozens of books, and not many of them starring the same character twice.

I thought at first that it was a book of short stories, but gradually the episodes link up so you can compare and contrast. There’s a resemblance to Michael Connelly’s character Mickey Haller – both are defense attorneys, both take on defe

7. LABIJOSE reviews for Rogue Lawyer

Grisham nos ofrece un enfoque diferente con esta novela, que casi podría considerarse una recopilación de relatos cortos centrados en un único protagonista. Sebastian Rudd es un abogado tipo Mickey Haller (Ver Michael Connelly), del que no sé si el autor se ha inspirado, pero parecería que sí. De hecho, lo nombra en algún pasaje, como uno de los autores preferidos por Rudd, junto a James Lee Burke.

Cada capítulo se centra en un caso distinto de dicho protagonista, especializado en defender a tipos que otros abogados pagarían por no ver en su vida. Hay mucho “Macho bullshit” en su caracterización; te lo terminarás creyendo o no (no demasiado, en realidad), pero acabé cogiéndole cariño al personaje. En cualquier caso, no es la típica novela de Grisham, salvo por las descripciones (y críticas) del sistema jurídico americano, con las que los profanos aprenderemos bastante. El autor sigue explotando su escepticismo de forma magistral, dando lugar a una lectura rápida e interesante. Continuaré con el protagonista en sucesivas entregas, si es que las hay. Hay material muy prometedor.

Esta novela está un escaño por debajo de “El soborno” (The whistler). Aun así, encuentro aquí a un autor bastante recuperado de sus anteriores fiascos. Y me huelgo dello.

8. BLAINE reviews for Rogue Lawyer

The Rogue Lawyer is the best Grisham book in a while, in part because it breaks out of his usual formula. Told in the first person, the book at first appears to be a collection of loosely related short stories. But eventually, the stories come together to tell a single story. The Rogue Lawyer, who is the narrator, is supposed to be a selfish, brash, obnoxious ass. But if there’s an overarching flaw to the book, it’s that he isn’t really much of a rogue. He helps the innocent. He cheats, but only when his opponent is cheating first. He represents the guilty, but reluctantly, which makes him a rogue in the Han Solo sense, not in the actual rogue, no-holds-barred defense attorney sense. Still, the plot is unpredictable, and the writing entertains. Recommended.

9. LOUIE reviews for Rogue Lawyer

I may have been overly generous with my rating, but this is such a welcome change from my previous Grisham novel (The Brethren — Ugh!) that I had seriously considered never reading him again. The man can write compelling characters: Sebastian Rudd (our MC) who is an anti-hero from a bygone era where noir had its appeal; an ex-wife lawyer who is trying to sever his parental rights, really? (Even if the man is a dirtbag shouldn’t he have some contact with his kid? Clearly, not if he’s going to hurt the kid.) Partner who is, well. . . a little on the nose. Rudd carries a gun and has a bodyguard. His office is a customized, bulletproof van on account of his previous office being fire-bombed. As a defense lawyer he defends people who ordinarily cannot find a defender. His clients range from a cult-member to a crime boss on death row to a man that defended his home from a SWAT team that mistakenly invaded his house at 3 in the morning. The plot feels as if it was written as short stories, but I think the style fit the story Grisham wanted to tell. Everything here feels original and gives me this sense that all is right in the world.

10. DAVID RUBENSTEIN reviews for Rogue Lawyer

I’ve read a couple of John Grisham’s novels; this book was the most entertaining, gripping from beginning to end. From the very start, I was hooked, and Grisham was able to keep me hooked throughout the novel. Each chapter in the book is more or less independent, describing some case or client in a vivid way that put me there in the story.

The book is about a criminal defense lawyer named Sebastian Rudd. He is not the usual type of lawyer; he works in a bullet-proof van because he makes enemies. So much of the book is about the amazing amount of injustice dealt by the so-called justice system. The first chapter is about his defense of a young guy who has been arrested by the police, and the prosecutor, judge and jury are convinced that he is guilty of murder. Even though the defendant has a good alibi, it is more important for everyone to find him guilty, even when all the facts point otherwise. The defendant is borderline normal/retarded, and does not understand everything that is happening around him.

Rudd takes clients that other lawyers would not want to touch. And, sometimes he even disagrees that someone is his client. Part of the appeal of the stories is Rudd’s ability to think “out of the box” in defending his clients–some innocent, and some guilty. His tactics are sometimes bizarre, but legal and always entertaining.

III. Rogue Lawyer Quotes

The best book quotes from Rogue Lawyer by John Grisham

“If the cops can’t convict with evidence, they use the media to convict with suspicion.”

“Like so many, this trial is not about the truth; it’s about winning.”

“Jack Peeley is a former boyfriend of the mother of the two Fentress girls.”

“As a society, we adhere to the belief in a fair trial for a person accused of a serious crime, but some of us struggle when it comes to the business of providing a competent lawyer to guarantee said fair trial. Lawyers like me live with the question “But how do you represent such scum?”
I offer a quick “Someone has to” as I walk away.
Do we really want fair trials? No, we do not. We want justice, and quickly. And justice is whatever we deem it to be on a case-by-case basis.
It’s just as well that we don’t believe in fair trials because we damned sure don’t have them. The presumption of innocence is now the presumption of guilt. The burden of proof is a travesty because the proof is often lies. Guilt beyond a reasonable doubt means if he probably did it, then let’s get him off the streets.”

“I learned a long time ago not to waste time analyzing why judges do the things they do.”

“And every defendant, regardless of how despicable the person or his crime, is entitled to a lawyer. Most laymen don’t understand this and don’t care. I don’t care either. This is my job.”

“if a defense lawyer is caught cheating, he or she gets nailed with sanctions by the court, reprimanded by the state bar association, maybe even indicted. If a prosecutor gets caught cheating, he either gets reelected or elevated to the bench.”

“The presumption of innocence is now the presumption of guilt. The burden of proof is a travesty because the proof is often lies. Guilt beyond a reasonable doubt means if he probably did it, then let’s get him off the streets.”

“Guilt beyond a reasonable doubt means if he probably did it, then let’s get him off the streets.”

“If a prosecutor gets caught cheating, he either gets reelected or elevated to the bench. Our system never holds a bad prosecutor accountable.”

“Sadly, dissent nowadays is considered unpatriotic, and in our post-9/11 atmosphere any criticism of those in uniform, any uniform, is stifled. Being labeled soft on crime or soft on terror is a politician’s curse.”

“Do we really want fair trials? No, we do not. We want justice, and quickly. And justice is whatever we deem it to be on a case-by-case basis.”

“Four months ago, he had a mild heart attack and his doctor told him to retire. He found another doctor.”

“Such is the lunacy and unfairness of the system. Huver’s witnesses, the ones testifying on behalf of the State, are cloaked with legitimacy, as if they’ve been sanctified by the authorities. Cops, experts, even snitches who’ve been washed and cleansed and spruced up in nice clothes, all take the stand and tell lies in a coordinated effort to have my client executed. But the witnesses who know the truth, and are telling it, are discounted immediately and made to look like fools.”

“deal with self-righteous prosecutors who lie, cheat, stonewall, cover up, ignore ethics, and do whatever it takes to get a conviction, even when they know the truth and the truth tells them they are wrong.”

“But a year in jail for an innocent man is pure luck in our system.”

“the eight warrior cops and their chief are terminated before the civil trial, they would likely become hostile witnesses against the City.”

“They, the lawmakers, were hoodwinked by the insurance companies who are still funding the national tort reform movement, a political crusade that has been wildly successful. Virtually every state has fallen in line with caps on damages and other laws designed to keep folks away from the courthouse. So far, no one has seen a decline in insurance rates. An investigative report by my pal at the Chronicle revealed that 90 percent of our legislators took campaign money from the insurance industry. And this is considered a democracy.”

“by the boats in the harbor. What else would you like to know?” “You plan to keep him tomorrow night?” “I get thirty-six hours, once a month. That’s 9:00 a.m. tomorrow until 9:00 p.m. Sunday. Do the math. It’s not that complicated.” The waiter pops in to”

“confidant, paralegal, caddie, and only friend. I earned”

“When the State, with its limitless resources, commences a fraudulent case and cheats at every turn, then cheating is legitimized. There is no level playing field. There is no fairness. The only honorable alternative for a lawyer fighting to save an innocent client is to cheat in defense. However, if a defense lawyer is caught cheating, he or she gets nailed with”

“Almost monthly I deal with self-righteous prosecutors who lie, cheat, stonewall, cover up, ignore ethics, and do whatever it takes to get a conviction, even when they know the truth and the truth tells them they are wrong. So I know the breed, the ilk, the subclass of lawyer who’s above the law because he is the law. Huver,”

“Sadly, dissent nowadays is considered unpatriotic, and in our post-9/11 atmosphere any criticism of those in uniform, any uniform, is stifled. Being labeled soft on crime or soft on terror is a politician’s curse. I’m”

“But I learned a long time ago not to waste time analyzing why judges do the things they do.”

“Cage fighting appeals to the savage instinct in some people, including me, and we’re all here for the same reason—to see one fighter annihilate another. We want to see bleeding eyes, gashes across the forehead, choke holds, bone-ripping submissions, and brutal knockout punches that send the corners scrambling for the doctor. Mix in a flood of cheap beer, and you have five thousand maniacs begging for blood.”

“They, the lawmakers, were hoodwinked by the insurance companies who are still funding the national tort reform movement, a political crusade that has been wildly successful.”

“It features strong coffee, real yogurt, decent bagels, and a layer of rich, blue cigarette smoke that’s a throwback to the days not long ago when it was common to eat in a restaurant while inhaling the fumes and vapors of those close by. Nowadays, it’s still hard to believe we tolerated that.”

“We want justice, and quickly. And justice is whatever we deem it to be on a case-by-case basis. It’s just as well that we don’t believe in fair trials because we damned sure don’t have them. The presumption of innocence is now the presumption of guilt. The burden of proof is a travesty because the proof is often lies. Guilt beyond a reasonable doubt means if he probably did it, then let’s get him off the streets.”

“Fifty feet away, five volunteers waited behind a curtain with high-powered rifles, though only four were loaded. The theory was that none of the five would ever know for sure that he killed a man, and this was somehow suppose to assuage his guilt later in life, in the event that he had a change of heart and became burdened. What a crock! There was a long list of volunteers, all eager to put a bullet dead center in another’s man’s heart.”

Excerpted from Rogue Lawyer by John Grisham

Chapter 1 – Rogue Lawyer

My name is Sebastian Rudd, and though I am a well‑known street lawyer, you will not see my name on billboards, on bus benches, or screaming at you from the yellow pages. I don’t pay to be seen on television, though I am often there. My name is not listed in any phone book. I do not maintain a traditional office. I carry a gun, legally, because my name and face tend to attract attention from the type of people who also carry guns and don’t mind using them. I live alone, usually sleep alone, and do not possess the patience and understanding necessary to maintain friendships. The law is my life, always consuming and occasionally fulfilling. I wouldn’t call it a “jealous mistress” as some forgotten person once so famously did. It’s more like an overbearing wife who controls the checkbook. There’s no way out.

These nights I find myself sleeping in cheap motel rooms that change each week. I’m not trying to save money; rather, I’m just trying to stay alive. There are plenty of people who’d like to kill me right now, and a few of them have been quite vocal. They don’t tell you in law school that one day you may find yourself defending a person charged with a crime so heinous that otherwise peaceful citizens feel driven to take up arms and threaten to kill the accused, his lawyer, and even the judge.

But I’ve been threatened before. It’s part of being a rogue lawyer, a subspecialty of the profession that I more or less fell into ten years ago. When I finished law school, jobs were scarce. I reluctantly took a part‑time position in the City’s public defender’s office. From there I landed in a small, unprofitable firm that handled only criminal defense. After a few years, that firm blew up and I was on my own, out on the street with plenty of others, scrambling to make a buck.

One case put me on the map. I can’t say it made me famous because, seriously, how can you say a lawyer is famous in a city of a million people? Plenty of local hacks think they’re famous. They smile from billboards as they beg for your bankruptcy and swagger in television ads as they seem deeply concerned about your personal injuries, but they’re forced to pay for their own publicity. Not me.

The cheap motels change each week. I’m in the middle of a trial in a dismal, backwater, redneck town called Milo, two hours from where I live in the City. I am defending a brain‑damaged eighteen‑year‑old dropout who’s charged with killing two little girls in one of the most evil crimes I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen plenty. My clients are almost always guilty, so I don’t waste a lot of time wringing my hands about whether they get what they deserve. In this case, though, Gardy is not guilty, not that it matters. It does not. What’s important in Milo these days is that Gardy gets convicted and sentenced to death and executed as soon as possible so that the town can feel better about itself and move on. Move on to where, exactly? Hell if I know, nor do I care. This place has been moving backward for fifty years, and one lousy verdict will not change its course. I’ve read and heard it said that Milo needs “closure,” whatever that means. You’d have to be an idiot to believe this town will somehow grow and prosper and become more tolerant as soon as Gardy gets the needle.

My job is layered and complicated, and at the same time it’s quite simple. I’m being paid by the State to provide a first‑class defense to a defendant charged with capital murder, and this requires me to fight and claw and raise hell in a courtroom where no one is listening. Gardy was essentially convicted the day he was arrested, and his trial is only a formality. The dumb and desperate cops trumped up the charges and fabricated the evidence. The prosecutor knows this but has no spine and is up for reelection next year. The judge is asleep. The jurors are basically nice, simple people, wide‑eyed at the process and ever so anxious to believe the lies their proud authorities are producing on the witness stand.

Milo has its share of cheap motels but I can’t stay there. I would be lynched or flayed or burned at the stake, or if I’m lucky a sniper would hit me between the eyes and it would be over in a flash. The state police are providing protection during the trial, but I get the clear impression these guys are just not into it. They view me the same way most people do. I’m a long‑haired roguish zealot sick enough to fight for the rights of child killers and the like.

My current motel is a Hampton Inn located twenty‑five minutes from Milo. It costs $60 a night and the State will reimburse me. Next door is Partner, a hulking, heavily armed guy who wears black suits and takes me everywhere. Partner is my driver, bodyguard, confidant, paralegal, caddie, and only friend. I earned his loyalty when a jury found him not guilty of killing an undercover narcotics officer. We walked out of the courtroom arm in arm and have been inseparable ever since. On at least two occasions, off‑duty cops have tried to kill him. On one occasion, they came after me.

We’re still standing. Or perhaps I should say we’re still ducking.

Chapter 2 – Rogue Lawyer

At 8:00 a.m. Partner knocks on my door. It’s time to go. We say our good mornings and climb into my vehicle, which is a large black Ford cargo van, heavily customized for my needs. Since it doubles as an office, the rear seats have been rearranged around a small table that folds into a wall. There is a sofa where I often spend the night. All windows are shaded and bulletproof. It has a television, stereo system, Internet, refrigerator, bar, a couple of guns, and a change of clothes. I sit in the front with Partner and we unwrap fast‑food sausage biscuits as we leave the parking lot. An unmarked state police car moves in front of us for the escort to Milo. There is another one behind us. The last death threat was two days ago and came by e‑mail.

Partner does not speak unless spoken to. I didn’t make this rule but I adore it. He is not the least bit bothered by long gaps in the conversation, nor am I. After years of saying next to nothing, we have learned to communicate with nods and winks and silence. Halfway to Milo I open a file and start taking notes.

The double murder was so gruesome no local lawyer would touch it. Then Gardy was arrested, and one look at Gardy and you know he’s guilty. Long hair dyed jet‑black, an astonishing collection of piercings above the neck and tattoos below, matching steel earrings, cold pale eyes, and a smirk that says, “Okay, I did it, now what?” In its very first story, the Milo newspaper described him as “a member of a satanic cult who has a record of molesting children.”

How’s that for honest and unbiased reporting? He was never a member of a satanic cult and the child molestation thing is not what it seems. But from that moment Gardy was guilty, and I still marvel at the fact that we’ve made it this far. They wanted to string him up months ago.

Needless to say, every lawyer in Milo locked his door and unplugged her phone. There is no public defender system in the town—it’s too small—and the indigent cases are doled out by the judge. There is an unwritten rule that the younger lawyers in town take these low‑paying cases because (1) someone has to and (2) the older lawyers did so when they were younger. But no one would agree to defend Gardy, and, to be honest, I can’t really blame them. It’s their town and their lives, and to rub shoulders with such a twisted murderer could do real damage to a career.

As a society, we adhere to the belief in a fair trial for a person accused of a serious crime, but some of us struggle when it comes to the business of providing a competent lawyer to guarantee said fair trial. Lawyers like me live with the question “But how do you represent such scum? ”

I offer a quick “Someone has to” as I walk away.

Do we really want fair trials? No, we do not. We want justice, and quickly. And justice is whatever we deem it to be on a case‑by‑case basis.

It’s just as well that we don’t believe in fair trials because we damned sure don’t have them. The presumption of innocence is now the presumption of guilt. The burden of proof is a travesty because the proof is often lies. Guilt beyond a reasonable doubt means if he probably did it, then let’s get him off the streets.

At any rate, the lawyers ran for the hills and Gardy had no one. It’s a commentary, sad or otherwise, on my reputation that I soon got the phone call. In this end of the state, it is now well known in legal circles that if you can’t find anybody else, call Sebastian Rudd. He’ll defend anybody!

When Gardy was arrested, a mob showed up outside the jail and screamed for justice. When the police perp‑walked him to a van for the ride to the courthouse, the mob cursed him and threw tomatoes and rocks. This was thoroughly reported by the local newspaper and even made the City’s evening news (there is no network station based in Milo, only a low‑end cable outfit). I howled for a change of venue, pleaded with the judge to move the trial at least a hundred miles away so we could hopefully find some jurors who hadn’t thrown stuff at the kid, or at the least cursed him over dinner. But we were denied. All of my pretrial motions were denied.

Again, the town wants justice. The town wants closure.

There is no mob to greet me and my van as we pull in to a short driveway behind the courthouse, but some of the usual actors are here. They huddle behind a police barricade not far away and hold their sad signs that say such clever things as “Hang the Baby Killer,” and “Satan Is Waiting,” and “Crud Rudd out of Milo!” There are about a dozen of these pathetic souls, just waiting to jeer at me and, more important, to show their hatred to Gardy, who will arrive at the same place in about five minutes. During the early days of the trial, this little crowd attracted cameras and a few of these people made it into the newspapers, along with their signs. This, of course, encouraged them and they’ve been here every morning since. Fat Susie holds the “Crud Rudd” sign and looks like she wants to shoot me. Bullet Bob claims to be a relative of one of the dead girls and was quoted as saying something to the effect that a trial was a waste of time.

He was right about that, I’m afraid.

When the van stops, Partner hurries around to my door, where he’s met by three young deputies about his size. I step out and am properly shielded, then I’m whisked into the rear door of the courthouse as Bullet Bob calls me a whore. Another safe entry. I’m not aware of any case in modern times in which a criminal defense attorney was gunned down while entering a courthouse in the middle of a trial. Nevertheless, I have resigned myself to the likelihood that I could well be the first.

We climb a narrow rear staircase that’s off‑limits to everyone else, and I’m led to a small windowless room where they once held prisoners waiting to see the judge. A few minutes later, Gardy arrives in one piece. Partner steps outside and closes the door.

“How ya doing?” I ask when we are alone.

He smiles and rubs his wrists, unshackled for a few hours. “Okay, I guess. Didn’t sleep much.” He didn’t shower either because he’s afraid to shower. He tries it occasionally but they won’t turn on the hot water. So Gardy reeks of stale sweat and dirty sheets, and I’m thankful he’s far enough away from the jury. The black dye is slowly leaving his hair and each day it gets lighter, and his skin gets paler. He’s changing colors in front of the jury, another clear sign of his animalistic capabilities and satanic bent.

“What’s gonna happen today?” he asks, with an almost childlike curiosity. He has an IQ of 70, just barely enough to be prosecuted and put to death.

“More of the same, Gardy, I’m afraid. Just more of the same.”

“Can’t you make them stop lying? ”

“No, I cannot.”

The State has no physical evidence linking Gardy to the murders. Zero. So, instead of evaluating its lack of evidence and reconsidering its case, the State is doing what it often does. It’s plowing ahead with lies and fabricated testimony.

Gardy has spent two weeks in the courtroom, listening to the lies, closing his eyes while slowly shaking his head. He’s able to shake his head for hours at a time, and the jurors must think he’s crazy. I’ve told him to stop, to sit up, to take a pen and scribble something on a legal pad as if he has a brain and wants to fight back, to win. But he simply cannot do this and I cannot argue with my client in the courtroom. I’ve also told him to cover his arms and neck to hide the tattoos, but he’s proud of them. I’ve told him to lose the piercings, but he insists on being who he is. The bright folks who run the Milo jail forbid piercings of all types, unless, of course, you’re Gardy and you’re headed back to the courtroom. In that case, stick ’em all over your face. Look as sick and creepy and satanic as possible, Gardy, so that your peers will have no trouble with your guilt.

On a nail is a hanger with the same white shirt and khaki pants he’s worn every day. I paid for this cheap ensemble. He slowly unzips the orange jail jumpsuit and steps out of it. He does not wear underwear, something I noticed the first day of the trial and have tried to ignore since. He slowly gets dressed. “So much lying,” he says.

And he’s right. The State has called nineteen witnesses so far and not a single one resisted the temptation to embellish a bit, or to lie outright. The pathologist who did the autopsies at the state crime lab told the jury the two little victims had drowned, but he also added that “blunt force trauma” to their heads was a contributing factor. It’s a better story for the prosecution if the jury believes the girls were raped and beaten senseless before being tossed into the pond. There’s no physical proof they were in any way sexually molested, but that hasn’t stopped the prosecution from making this a part of its case. I haggled with the pathologist for three hours, but it’s tough arguing with an expert, even an incompetent one.

Since the State has no evidence, it is forced to manufacture some. The most outrageous testimony came from a jailhouse snitch they call Smut, an appropriate nickname. Smut is an accomplished courtroom liar who testifies all the time and will say whatever the prosecutors want him to say. In Gardy’s case, Smut was back in jail on a drug charge and looking at ten years in prison. The cops needed some testimony, and, not surprisingly, Smut was at their disposal. They fed him details of the crimes, then transferred Gardy from a regional jail to a county jail where Smut was locked up. Gardy had no idea why he was being transferred and had no clue that he was walking into a trap. (This happened before I got involved.) They threw Gardy into a small cell with Smut, who was anxious to talk and wanted to help in any way. He claimed to hate the cops and know some good lawyers. He’d also read about the murders of the two girls and had a hunch he knew who really killed them. Since Gardy knew nothing about the murders, he had nothing to add to the conversation. Nonetheless, within twenty‑four hours Smut claimed he’d heard a full confession. The cops yanked him out of the cell and Gardy never saw him again, until trial. As a witness, Smut cleaned up nicely, wore a shirt and tie and short hair, and hid his tattoos from the jury. In amazing detail, he replayed Gardy’s account of how he stalked the two girls into the woods, knocked them off their bikes, gagged and bound them, then tortured, molested, and beat them before tossing them into the pond. In Smut’s version, Gardy was high on drugs and had been listening to heavy metal.

It was quite a performance. I knew it was all a lie, as did Gardy and Smut, along with the cops and prosecutors, and I suspect the judge had his doubts too. Nevertheless, the jurors swallowed it in disgust and glared with hatred at my client, who absorbed it with his eyes closed and his head shaking, no, no, no. Smut’s testimony was so breathtakingly gruesome and rich with details that it was hard to believe, at times, that he was really fabricating it. No one can lie like that!

I hammered at Smut for eight full hours, one long exhausting day. The judge was cranky and the jurors were bleary‑eyed, but I could have kept going for a week. I asked Smut how many times he’d testified in criminal trials. He said maybe twice. I pulled out the records, refreshed his memory, and went through the nine other trials in which he’d performed the same miracle for our honest and fair‑minded prosecutors. With his muddled memory somewhat restored, I asked him how many times he’d had his sentence reduced by the prosecutors after lying for them in court. He said never, so I went through each of the nine cases again. I produced the paperwork. I made it perfectly clear to everyone, especially the jurors, that Smut was a lying, serial snitch who swapped bogus testimony for leniency.

I confess—I get angry in court, and this is often detrimental. I blew my cool with Smut and hammered him so relentlessly that some of the jurors became sympathetic. The judge finally told me to move on, but I didn’t. I hate liars, especially those who swear to tell the truth and then fabricate testimony to convict my client. I yelled at Smut and the judge yelled at me, and at times it seemed as though everyone was yelling. This did not help Gardy’s cause.

You would think the prosecutor might break up his parade of liars with a credible witness, but this would require some intelligence. His next witness was another inmate, another druggie who testified he was in the hallway near Gardy’s cell and heard him confess to Smut.

Lies on top of lies.

“Please make them stop,” Gardy says.

“I’m trying, Gardy. I’m doing the best I can. We need to go.”

….

Note: Above are quotes and excerpts from the book “Rogue Lawyer by John Grisham”. If you find it interesting and useful, don’t forget to buy paper books to support the Author and Publisher!

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