The Runaway Jury by John Grisham

Related Articles

Haunting Adeline by H. D. Carlton

Satan’s Affair by H. D. Carlton

The Trees by Percival Everett

Categories	Thrillers & Suspense
Author	John Grisham
Publisher	Anchor (April 25, 2006)
Language	English
Paperback	464 pages
Item Weight	12.2 ounces
Dimensions	5.25 x 0.94 x 7.99 inches

I. Book introduction

The Runaway Jury is a legal thriller novel written by American author John Grisham. It was Grisham’s seventh novel. The hardcover first edition was published by Doubleday Books in 1996 (ISBN 0-385-47294-3). Pearson Longman released the graded reader edition in 2001 (ISBN 0-582-43405-X). The novel was published again in 2003 to coincide with the release of Runaway Jury, a movie adaptation of the novel starring Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman, John Cusack and Rachel Weisz. The third printing (ISBN 0-440-22147-1) bears a movie-themed cover, in place of the covers used on the first and second printings.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Every jury has a leader, and the verdict belongs to them.

They are at the center of a multimillion-dollar legal hurricane: twelve men and women who have been investigated, watched, manipulated, and harassed by high-priced lawyers and consultants who will stop at nothing to secure a verdict. Now the jury must make a decision in the most explosive civil trial of the century, a precedent-setting lawsuit against a giant tobacco company. But only a handful of people know the truth: that this jury has a leader, and the verdict belongs to him.

He is known only as Juror #2. But he has a name, a past, and he has planned his every move with the help of a beautiful woman on the outside. Now, while a corporate empire hangs in the balance, while a grieving family waits, and while lawyers are plunged into a battle for their careers, the truth about Juror #2 is about to explode in a cross fire of greed and corruption—and with justice fighting for its life.

Plot

Wendall Rohr and his team of tort lawyers have filed suit on behalf of plaintiff Celeste Wood, whose husband died of lung cancer, against the tobacco company Pynex. The trial is to be held in Biloxi, Mississippi, a state thought to have favorable tort laws and sympathetic juries. Before the jury in the Pynex trial has been sworn in, a stealth juror, Nicholas Easter, has begun to quietly connive behind the scenes, in concert with a mysterious woman known only as Marlee.

Rankin Fitch, a shady “consultant” who has directed eight successful trials for the tobacco industry, has placed a camera in the courtroom in order to observe the proceedings in his office nearby, plotting many schemes to reach to the jury. He plans to get to Millie Dupree through blackmailing her husband through a tape that has him trying to bribe an official. He gets to Lonnie Shaver by convincing a company to buy his employer and convince him through orientation. He also tries to reach Rikki Coleman through blackmail of revealing her abortion to her husband. As the case continues, Fitch is approached by Marlee with a proposal to “buy” the verdict.

Meanwhile, Easter works from the inside to gain control of the jury – being warm-hearted, sympathetic and helpful to jurors who might be won over, and rather ruthless to those who prove impervious to his efforts. Eventually, he becomes jury foreman after the previous one falls ill (resulting from Nicholas spiking his coffee). He also manages to hoodwink and repeatedly manipulate the judge. Meanwhile, Marlee – Easter’s partner/lover – acts as his agent on the outside, convincing Fitch that Easter controls the jury and can deliver any verdict on demand through a series of highly secretive meetings, in which Marlee repeatedly threatens to disappear if Fitch’s team attempts to track her.

Marlee gives Fitch the impression that the pair’s objective is purely mercenary – to sell the verdict to highest bidder. Still, he makes a great effort to discover her true name and antecedents to satisfy his mounting curiosity. This turns out to be extremely difficult, and the detectives employed by Fitch express their grudging respect for her skill in hiding her tracks. As the trial reaches its climax, Fitch – still in the dark about Marlee’s past – agrees to her proposal to pay $10 million for a favorable verdict. Only after the money is irrevocably transferred to an offshore account do the detectives discover the truth: Marlee is in fact an anti-smoking activist whose parents both died from smoking. Thus, Fitch realizes that he lost Pynex’s $10 million in addition to having lost the trial.

Inside the closed jury room, Easter convinces the jury to find for the plaintiff and make a large monetary award – $2 million in compensatory damages, and $400 million in punitive damages. While not able to sway the entire jury, Easter gets nine out of twelve jurors to back him – sufficient for a valid verdict in a civil case. Pynex and its defense lawyers are devastated. In the Cayman Islands, Marlee short-sells the tobacco companies’ stocks and makes an enormous gain on the original $10 million. Easter quickly disappears from Biloxi and leaves the US. While Easter and Marlee are now wealthy and satisfied that they served justice, the tobacco industry, once undefeatable, are now vulnerable to an avalanche of additional lawsuits.

The book closes with Marlee returning the initial $10 million bribe to Fitch, having almost doubled the money on the derivatives market, and warning Fitch that she and Easter will always be watching. She explains that she had no intention to steal or lie, and that she cheated only because, “That was all your client understood.”

Editorial Reviews

• “Marvelous!”—News-Tribune, Phoenix, Arizona
• “Gripping.”—Seattle Times
• “Marvelously Clever.”—USA Today
• “Entertainingly unpredictable!”—The New York Times
• “Fascinating. . .high–powered narration.”—Chicago Tribune
• “His most rewarding novel to date.”—Publishers Weekly
• “A real page–turner!”—Houston Chronicle
• “Deserves to be a runaway success.”—Atlanta Journal and Constitution
• “Ingeniously narrated.”—Entertainment Weekly

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: The Runaway Jury

Here is a summary of the book Review “The Runaway Jury by John Grisham”. Helps you have the most overview of the book without searching through time. Please access “BookQuote.Net” regularly or save it to keep track and update the latest information.

1. MANDREK LARL reviews for The Runaway Jury

Up there with the best of Grisham’s thrillers and would have been five stars if …

Oh this is very good, John Grisham’s story of a jury manipulated, twisted and turned in a trial against a tobacco company is up there with the best of his legal thrillers: “The Partner”, “The Firm” and of course “The Pelican Brief”; and like those books it’s both clever and hovers in that space between credible and fantasy.

So why four stars and not five? It’s certainly a five star story: it’s well-paced, it twists and turns, there are clever little side-bar plots and there’s a big reveal at the end, and it’s a five star read. And it would have been five stars but [warning you may consider this to be nit-picking] with a jury of twelve plus three substitutes and their nearest and dearests; the court officials; the plaintiff’s legal team; the defendant’s legal team; mixed cops, hoodlums and lowlifes; plus various bit part players there’s too many characters to keep tabs on, what it needed was a dramatis personnae and that would have made it all so much easier.

2. BRENDA YOUNG reviews for The Runaway Jury

One of Grisham’s finest legal battles of wit and manipulation.

Being from a society in which Juries are picked at random from electoral roles, it comes as a shock to learn of the intensive scrutiny to which potential jurors in America are subjected, lawfully, before being selected for a massive “shortlist” from which the final twelve, plus extras, will be chosen.

A conglomerate of giant Tobacco Manufacturers is determined that one of their number, being sued for damages by a middle-aged woman, widowed, she claims, through her late husband’s lethal tobacco addiction, is found ‘not guilty’ – otherwise they all fall together. Thus the stakes are not only higher than usual, but readily available, and liberally provided.

Notwithstanding Judge Hardin’s daily reminders of the jury’s obligations to talk to no one about the trial, several of them are being subjected to some form of blackmail or bribery. Where money is no object, and in the belief that “every man has his price”, finding weak points and playing on them, is a walkover.

However, not all interested parties are without opposing ambitions. Some cannot be bought, and some are cunning enough and manipulative enough to stay one step ahead of our known villains.

3. BLAINE reviews for The Runaway Jury

She was pondering the option of law school, the great American baby-sitter for directionless postgrads.

After a run of less-than-satisfying John Grisham novels, I decided to go back and re-read The Runaway Jury, one of my favorites. It doesn’t disappoint. Is the plot wildly far-fetched? Sure. Is it dated reading now about the unbeatable tobacco industry? Yes. But this book is just loads of fun anyway.

What I did not remember was that The Runaway Jury has the same flaw that weaken many of Mr. Grisham’s later books. It is ultimately another of his cause books, with surprisingly long sections all about the evils of smoking. The difference is that earlier in his career, Mr. Grisham came up with better plots (jury tampering from inside the jury room!) and better villains (Rankin Fitch—how can someone with that name not be a great villain?) to make the medicine go down. If you have never read a John Grisham novel, this is definitely one of the best ones to start with.

4. HERBIE reviews for The Runaway Jury

02/03/2020 update – I just watched the film and I’ve got to say, it was rubbish in comparison! If you’ve seen the film, don’t be put off reading what is indeed an excellent legal thriller.

Wow what a book! It’s my first John Grisham after many years of procrastinating, but dang is it a corker.

It was one of those stories that when I wasn’t reading it, I was thinking about the fact that I wanted to be. If you’re after a book that grabs you, this is a good one.

I’ve never been that interested in law, but watching such a big legal battle unfold on paper was something pretty epic. Grisham explored the themes of jury tampering so cleverly that it leaves you wondering just how much of it could be true.

My one gripe was the number of characters and separate stories gets slightly confusing, but the story is worth it.

5. DAVID LUCERO reviews for The Runaway Jury

Saw the movie before reading the book and glad it closely followed the story written by Grisham. They did one minor change, or a major one depending on one’s perspective. In the book the lawsuit was aimed at the tobacco industry. The movie targets the gun industry, both powerful industries.

When a family decides to take on the tobacco industry and hold them accountable for the death of a family member who got hooked on their product, the tobacco industry pulls no punches, employing a legal expert who directs the law team handling the defense from behind-the-scenes. With millions of dollars in the bank for him to use at his discretion, Rankin Fitch employs the latest hi-tech needed to track potential jurors and get into how they think. This allows him to choose jurors who will likely vote the way he wants them too.

….But then the unexpected happens!

Someone who is not who he appears to be worms his way onto the jury and turns out to be a wild card. As things develop it turns out this ‘someone’ has an agenda who wants to bring the tobacco industry down, and his powers of persuasion are quite strong. With the help of a young, strange woman on his team, this juror begins a twisted battle with those favoring the tobacco’s case, and soon Fitch realizes he no longer has the jury following his lead. Thus, Fitch employs a more dangerous plan which will begin costing people’s lives if he proves successful.

I read this book sometime after I saw the movie in 2004 because I enjoyed it so much. Grisham writes with superb detail that intrigue the reader’s psyche. It’s all the more entertaining because the author is an experienced lawyer, so one will appreciate the truth in his fictional account of what likely happens behind the scenes. And this makes one a bit unnerved because if this is the case, then what is our judicial system doing (if anything) to prevent such action from tainting a jury? This book is highly recommended and I’ve kept it for reading again and again like I have some of his other books which are favorites of mine.

6. JEREMY A.GOLDMAN reviews for The Runaway Jury

Highly recommend!!

My only prior exposure to John Grisham was his movies. The Rainmaker is one of my favorite movies along with The Client. After reading a description of The Runaway Jury, it sounded interesting and so I gave it a shot. I finished the book cover-to-cover in 5 days (and I work full time!!).

The book mainly revolves around a large trial in the south involving the four largest tobacco manufacturers versus the widow of a man who died of lung cancer due to 30 years of smoking. Concerning the entire topic of smoking, Grisham does get rather preachy at certain points, blatantly pointing out his views about the subject, but I managed easily to look beyond that.

In this jury trial, something has gone wrong. The jury is being manipulated from the inside and neither the defense nor the prosecution can figure out how it’s being done and who is doing it. This book is a page turner and very suspensful. It also plays on the “normal average joe winning the lottery” type situation (albeit after manipulating the lottery) that most people dream about. It’s a great book that most people can relate to with characters that you really get to know. That is one of Grisham’s greatest successes with this book. The ability to have his readers get to know his characters personally to the point where you really care what they are going through.

I highly recommend this book to Grisham fans, as well as those who have never read his books. It’s a great way to jump in to the genre of legal thrillers.

7. BEN reviews for The Runaway Jury

Nicholas Easter, juror number 2 and a mysterious woman known as Marlee conspire to manipulate the jury to secure a verdict in a landmark trial involving a widow plaintiff (whose husband died of lung cancer because of cigarette addiction) and a big tobacco company. They have to play with both sides (the plaintiff and the defense) and go up against a cunning jury consultant Rankin Fitch who is an expert in jury manipulations. Fitch works for the defense.

The Runaway Jury is an intensely suspenseful legal thriller. I could feel my heart pounding as I read the last pages of the book. I was hooked by Grisham’s narration as a child mesmerized by bedtime storytelling. The book tackles a lot of important points about cigarette smoking which make the story more interesting. Perhaps Grisham’s novels are like cigarettes with nicotine substances which make them so addictive.

8. ROB reviews for The Runaway Jury

• Thank God this is a work of fiction.
• If the book had even the tiniest modicum of truth it would render trials by jury obsolete.
• As a work of fiction, it is a very enjoyable read.
• I enjoyed all the manipulative skulduggery of both the tobacco industries team and to two wunderkinds who are trying to sabotage the tobacco industries attempts to avoid paying a gross amount of compensation to a widow who lost her husband to lung cancer.
• The lengths that the tobacco magnates are prepared to go to in an effort to corrupt the jury would make the CIA look like a bunch of amateurs. But not to be outdone, the two wunderkinds, one in the jury and the other one on the outside, are just as good at the art of skulduggery.
• Ridiculous, but really enjoyable.
• Recommended for readers who like a page turner and don’t mind reality being stretched really thin.

9. NATALIE VELLACOTT reviews for The Runaway Jury

Another Grisham legal thriller successfully concluded.

This is definitely one of the author’s most exciting and unusual books. I think, in part, because those who have never served on a jury always wonder what exactly goes on behind those closed doors. They will never find out, though, because most countries have laws protecting the deliberations from being made public. So, we will never know whether an irresponsible jury just flipped a coin for the verdict, or whether they decided they didn’t like the defendant’s lawyer’s hair colour and punished him for it.

In this book, all is revealed as we are taken behind the scenes and into the jury room in a “does smoking cause lung cancer?” case. The defendant, a large tobacco company is basically representing all tobacco companies who fear class action if the verdict goes against them. However, they don’t need to worry as seasoned expert Fitch comes to the rescue with his pool of money and ability to operate outside the law.

The jury is selected in a rush of activity as the experts scramble to analyse every detail of their lives. There’s just one unknown, who’s managed to slip through the net. He seems harmless enough, but the inability to find out anything about him is making both sides slightly anxious. Just who is Nicholas Easter and what are his intentions? And why are the jury behaving so strangely?

This book keeps the reader guessing until the very last page. It has been masterfully created and intricately planned and executed. The characters are well developed and believable.

Grisham often includes themes of absolute power corrupting absolutely and the ability to buy oneself out of any and every situation. The interesting twist this time is the ethical aspect–does the end justify the means? Is it okay to commit a crime or to blackmail someone if your intentions are honourable? What if they are also corrupt–do two wrongs cancel each other out and make a right? Are the people then both as bad as each other? The Bible tells us that we should do what is right even if it means standing alone and even if everyone else is doing something different. The way that we do things is just as important as the outcome–we cannot expect to achieve a good outcome if we act deceitfully in the process. We are ultimately accountable to God not people for the way that we live and conduct ourselves.

Another bonus to this particular book is that the language is pretty clean, there are just a few border line curse words. There is no violence and there are just a few references to sexual activity that aren’t graphic.

For those who aren’t sure whether they will enjoy John Grisham, this is a good place to start. One of my favourites, recommended.

10. ERIC reviews for The Runaway Jury

Another excellent work by a world revered writer. The kernel of the theme here is seemingly encapsulated when the odious Fitch ponders: “Oh the questions he wanted to ask. He d love to start with the two of them and ask whose idea it was, such an ingenious devious plan to study litigation, then follow it across the country then plant oneself on the jury so a deal could be cut for a verdict. It was nothing short of brilliant. He could grill her for hours, maybe days about the specifics but he knew there would be no answers….”

But of course the plot cannot be that simple; and we have to wade through this tantalizing work to know the unadorned truth in the end. Typical of his works, the author reveals the sleazy nature of the law and legal practitioners. For example we read: “They did the dirty work that had to be kept to themselves. Most of the other lawyers used runners like Clive to spread cash and chase cases and perform dark little deeds not taught in law school, but none of them would ever admit to such unethical activity…”

This steaming work is also about big business, big money, the ruthlessness of the corporate world in certain cases; here the tobacco conglomerates. How well we know here in Africa how the monolithic companies trample those who dare to get in their way! Yet the author clearly pitches his tent with the victims of smoking, as the story peters to an end. Those against smoking carry the day, and it becomes illuminating as we read: “(My parents) were wonderful people…they got hooked on cigarettes when they were in college… They hated themselves for smoking but could never give it up. They died horrible deaths. I watched them suffer and shrivel and gasp for breath until they could not breathe anymore…”

III. The Runaway Jury Quotes

The best book quotes from The Runaway Jury by John Grisham

“They’ll say it was a runaway verdict from a runaway jury, and they’ll fix it.”

“For him, the kicking of a bad habit was nothing but a simple act of willpower. Get the head straight, and the body can do anything.”

“Life is short..Live to the fullest..”

“She was pondering the option of law school, the great American baby-sitter for directionless postgrads.”

“Forget the taxpayers. I’m sure these lawyers here wouldn’t mind passing the plate. Look, ask each side to put up a thousand dollars. We can charter a huge boat and have a wonderful time.”

“She looked great in tight jeans and short skirts, she looked great in anything or nothing, really, but for the moment she wanted no one to notice her.”

“Harkin asked for a no-strike guarantee in the future, but Easter wouldn’t commit.”

“By five-thirty, eleven people had been excused, and sixteen others had been sent back to their seats after failing to sound sufficiently pitiful”

Excerpted from The Runaway Jury by John Grisham

Chapter One – The Runaway Jury

The face of Nicholas Easter was slightly hidden by a display rack filled with slim cordless phones, and he was looking not directly at the hidden camera but somewhere off to the left, perhaps at a customer, or perhaps at a counter where a group of kids hovered over the latest electronic games from Asia. Though taken from a distance of forty yards by a man dodging rather heavy mall foot traffic, the photo was clear and revealed a nice face, clean-shaven with strong features and boyish good looks. Easter was twenty-seven, they knew that for a fact. No eyeglasses. No nose ring or weird haircut. Nothing to indicate he was one of the usual computer nerds who worked in the store at five bucks an hour. His questionnaire said he’d been there for four months, said also that he was a part-time student, though no record of enrollment had been found at any college within three hundred miles. He was lying about this, they were certain.

He had to be lying. Their intelligence was too good. If the kid was a student, they’d know where, for how long, what field of study, how good were the grades, or how bad. They’d know. He was a clerk in a Computer Hut in a mall. Nothing more or less. Maybe he planned to enroll somewhere. Maybe he’d dropped out but still liked the notion of referring to himself as a part-time student. Maybe it made him feel better, gave him a sense of purpose, sounded good.

But he was not, at this moment nor at any time in the recent past, a student of any sort. So, could he be trusted? This had been thrashed about the room twice already, each time they came to Easter’s name on the master list and his face hit the screen. It was a harmless lie, they’d almost decided.

He didn’t smoke. The store had a strict nonsmoking rule, but he’d been seen (not photographed) eating a taco in the Food Garden with a co-worker who smoked two cigarettes with her lemonade. Easter didn’t seem to mind the smoke. At least he wasn’t an antismoking zealot.

The face in the photo was lean and tanned and smiling slightly with lips closed. The white shirt under the red store jacket had a buttonless collar and a tasteful striped tie. He appeared neat, in shape, and the man who took the photo actually spoke with Nicholas as he pretended to shop for an obsolete gadget; said he was articulate, helpful, knowledgeable, a nice young man. His name tag labeled Easter as a Co-Manager, but two others with the same title were spotted in the store at the same time.

The day after the photo was taken, an attractive young female in jeans entered the store, and while browsing near the software actually lit up a cigarette. Nicholas Easter just happened to be the nearest clerk, or Co-Manager, or whatever he was, and he politely approached the woman and asked her to stop smoking. She pretended to be frustrated by this, even insulted, and tried to provoke him. He maintained his tactful manner, explained to her that the store had a strict no-smoking policy. She was welcome to smoke elsewhere. “Does smoking bother you?” she had asked, taking a puff. “Not really,” he had answered. “But it bothers the man who owns this store.” He then asked her once again to stop. She really wanted to purchase a new digital radio, she explained, so would it be possible for him to fetch an ashtray. Nicholas pulled an empty soft drink can from under the counter, and actually took the cigarette from her and extinguished it. They talked about radios for twenty minutes as she struggled with the selection. She flirted shamelessly, and he warmed to the occasion. After paying for the radio, she left him her phone number. He promised to call.

The episode lasted twenty-four minutes and was captured by a small recorder hidden in her purse. The tape had been played both times while his face had been projected on the wall and studied by the lawyers and their experts. Her written report of the incident was in the file, six typed pages of her observations on everything from his shoes (old Nikes) to his breath (cinnamon gum) to his vocabulary (college level) to the way he handled the cigarette. In her opinion, and she was experienced in such matters, he had never smoked.

They listened to his pleasant tone and his professional sales pitch and his charming chatter, and they liked him. He was bright and he didn’t hate tobacco. He didn’t fit as their model juror, but he was certainly one to watch. The problem with Easter, potential juror number fifty-six, was that they knew so little about him. Evidently, he had landed on the Gulf Coast less than a year ago, and they had no idea where he came from. His past was a complete mystery. He rented a one-bedroom eight blocks from the Biloxi courthouse–they had photos of the apartment building–and at first worked as a waiter in a casino on the beach. He rose quickly to the rank of blackjack dealer, but quit after two months.

Shortly after Mississippi legalized gambling, a dozen casinos along the Coast sprang forth overnight, and a new wave of prosperity hit hard. Job seekers came from all directions, and so it was safe to assume Nicholas Easter arrived in Biloxi for the same reason as ten thousand others. The only odd thing about his move was that he had registered to vote so quickly.

He drove a 1969 Volkswagen Beetle, and a photo of it was flashed on the wall, taking the place of his face. Big deal. He was twenty-seven, single, an alleged part-time student–the perfect type to drive such a car. No bumper stickers. Nothing to indicate political affiliation or social conscience or favorite team. No college parking sticker. Not even a faded dealer decal. The car meant nothing, as far as they were concerned. Nothing but near-poverty.

The man operating the projector and doing most of the talking was Carl Nussman, a lawyer from Chicago who no longer practiced law but instead ran his own jury consulting firm. For a small fortune, Carl Nussman and his firm could pick you the right jury. They gathered the data, took the photos, recorded the voices, sent the blondes in tight jeans into the right situations. Carl and his associates flirted around the edges of laws and ethics, but it was impossible to catch them. After all, there’s nothing illegal or unethical about photographing prospective jurors. They had conducted exhaustive telephone surveys in Harrison County six months ago, then again two months ago, then a month later to gauge community sentiment about tobacco issues and formulate models of the perfect jurors. They left no photo untaken, no dirt ungathered. They had a file on every prospective juror.

Carl pushed his button and the VW was replaced with a meaningless shot of an apartment building with peeling paint; home, somewhere in there, of Nicholas Easter. Then a flick, and back to the face.

“And so we have only the three photos of number fifty-six,” Carl said with a note of frustration as he turned and glared at the photographer, one of his countless private snoops, who had explained he just couldn’t catch the kid without getting caught himself. The photographer sat in a chair against the back wall, facing the long table of lawyers and paralegals and jury experts. The photographer was quite bored and ready to bolt. It was seven o’clock on a Friday night. Number fifty-six was on the wall, leaving a hundred and forty still to come. The weekend would be awful. He needed a drink.

A half-dozen lawyers in rumpled shirts and rolled-up sleeves scribbled never-ending notes, and glanced occasionally at the face of Nicholas Easter up there behind Carl. Jury experts of almost every variety–psychiatrist, sociologist, handwriting analyst, law professor, and so on–shuffled papers and thumped the inch-thick computer printouts. They weren’t sure what to do with Easter. He was a liar, and he was hiding his past, but still on paper and on the wall he looked okay.

Maybe he wasn’t lying. Maybe he was a student last year in some low-rent junior college in eastern Arizona, and maybe they were simply missing this.

Give the kid a break, the photographer thought, but he kept it to himself. In this room of well-educated and well-paid suits, he was the last one whose opinion would be appreciated. Wasn’t his job to say a word.

Carl cleared his throat while glancing once more at the photographer, then said, “Number fifty-seven.” The sweaty face of a young mother flashed on the wall, and at least two people in the room managed a chuckle. “Traci Wilkes,” Carl said, as if Traci was now an old friend. Papers moved slightly around the table.

“Age thirty-three, married, mother of two, doctor’s wife, two country clubs, two health clubs, a whole list of social clubs.” Carl clicked off these items from memory while twirling his projector button. Traci’s red face was replaced by a shot of her jogging along a sidewalk, splendidly awash in pink and black spandex and spotless Reeboks with a white sun visor sitting just above the latest in reflective sport sunglasses, her long hair in a cute perfect ponytail. She was pushing a jogging carriage with a small baby in it. Traci lived for sweat. She was tanned and fit, but not exactly as thin as might be expected. She had a few bad habits. Another shot of Traci in her black Mercedes wagon with kids and dogs looking from every window. Another of Traci loading bags of groceries into the same car, Traci with different sneakers and tight shorts and the precise appearance of one who aspired to look forever athletic. She’d been easy to follow because she was busy to the point of being frazzled, and she never stopped long enough to look around.

Carl ran through the photos of the Wilkeses’ home, a massive suburban trilevel with Doctor stamped all over it. He spent little time with these, saving the best for last. Then there was Traci, once again soaked with sweat, her designer bike nearby on the grass, sitting under a tree in a park, far away from everyone, half-hidden and–smoking a cigarette!

The same photographer grinned stupidly. It was his finest work, this hundred-yard shot of the doctor’s wife sneaking a cigarette. He had had no idea she smoked, just happened to be nonchalantly smoking himself near a footbridge when she dashed by. He loitered about the park for half an hour until he saw her stop and reach into the pouch on her bike.

The mood around the room lightened for a fleeting moment as they looked at Traci by the tree. Then Carl said, “Safe to say that we’ll take number fifty-seven.” He made a notation on a sheet of paper, then took a sip of old coffee from a paper cup. Of course he’d take Traci Wilkes! Who wouldn’t want a doctor’s wife on the jury when the plaintiff’s lawyers were asking for millions? Carl wanted nothing but doctors’ wives, but he wouldn’t get them. The fact that she enjoyed cigarettes was simply a small bonus.

Number fifty-eight was a shipyard worker at Ingalls in Pascagoula–fifty years old, white male, divorced, a union officer. Carl flashed a photo of the man’s Ford pickup on the wall, and was about to summarize his life when the door opened and Mr. Rankin Fitch stepped into the room. Carl stopped. The lawyers bolted upright in their seats and instantly became enthralled by the Ford. They wrote furiously on their legal pads as if they might never again see such a vehicle. The jury consultants likewise snapped into action and all began taking notes in earnest, each careful not to look at the man.

Fitch was back. Fitch was in the room.

He slowly closed the door behind him, took a few steps toward the edge of the table, and glared at everyone sitting around it. It was more of a snarl than a glare. The puffy flesh around his dark eyes pinched inward. The deep wrinkles running the length of his forehead closed together. His thick chest rose and sank slowly, and for a second or two Fitch was the only person breathing. His lips parted to eat and drink, occasionally to talk, never to smile.

Fitch was angry, as usual, nothing new about that because the man even slept in a state of hostility. But would he curse and threaten, maybe throw things, or simply boil under the surface? They never knew with Fitch. He stopped at the edge of the table between two young lawyers who were junior partners and thus earning comfortable six-figure salaries, who were members of this firm and this was their room in their building. Fitch, on the other hand, was a stranger from Washington, an intruder who’d been growling and barking in their hallways for a month now. The two young lawyers dared not look at him.

“What number?” Fitch asked of Carl.

“Fifty-eight,” Carl answered quickly, anxious to please.

“Go back to fifty-six,” Fitch demanded, and Carl flicked rapidly until the face of Nicholas Easter was once again on the wall. Paperwork ruffled around the table.

“What do you know?” Fitch asked.

“The same,” Carl said, looking away.

“That’s just great. Out of a hundred and ninety-six, how many are still mysteries?”

“Eight.”

Fitch snorted and shook his head slowly, and everyone waited for an eruption. Instead, he slowly stroked his meticulously trimmed black and gray goatee for a few seconds, looked at Carl, allowed the severity of the moment to filter in, then said, “You’ll work until midnight, then return at seven in the morning. Same for Sunday.” With that, he wheeled his pudgy body around and left the room.

The door slammed. The air lightened considerably, then, in unison, the lawyers and the jury consultants and Carl and everybody else glanced at their watches. They had just been ordered to spend thirty-nine out of the next fifty-three hours in this room, looking at enlarged photos of faces they’d already seen, memorizing names and birthdates and vital stats of almost two hundred people.

And there wasn’t the slightest doubt anywhere in the room that they all would do exactly what they’d been told. Not the slightest.

Fitch took the stairs to the first floor of the building, and was met there by his driver, a large man named Jose. Jose wore a black suit with black western boots and black sunglasses that were removed only when he showered and slept. Fitch opened a door without knocking, and interrupted a meeting which had been in progress for hours. Four lawyers and their assorted support staff were watching the videotaped depositions of the plaintiff’s first witnesses. The tape stopped just seconds after Fitch burst in. He spoke briefly to one of the lawyers, then left the room. Jose followed him through a narrow library to another hallway, where he barged through another door and frightened another bunch of lawyers.

With eighty lawyers, the firm of Whitney & Cable & White was the largest on the Gulf Coast. The firm had been hand-picked by Fitch himself, and it would earn millions in fees because of this selection. To earn the money, though, the firm had to endure the tyranny and ruthlessness of Rankin Fitch.

When satisfied that the entire building was aware of his presence and terrified of his movements, Fitch left. He stood on the sidewalk, in the warm October air, and waited for Jose. Three blocks away, in the top half of an old bank building, he could see an office suite filled with lights. The enemy was still working. The plaintiff’s lawyers were up there, all huddled together in various rooms, m

….

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

The above content has been collected from various sources on the internet. Click the Share button to recommend the book to your friends!

BookQuote.Net Sincerely Introduced!