Small Great Things Read online

  "Nice chatting with you too," I mutter.

  At that moment, Howard blusters in. His glasses are askew and his shirt is untucked in the back and he looks like he's already had about ten cups of coffee. "I was doing some background research," he begins, sitting down in the chair Odette just vacated.

  "When? In the shower?" I know exactly when we stopped working last night, which leaves little room for free time.

  "So, there was a study done by SUNY Stony Brook in 1991 and 1992 by Nayda Terkildsen, about how white voters assess black politicians who are running for office, and how prejudice affects that, and how that changes for people who actively try not to act prejudiced--"

  "First," I say, "we are not using a defense based on race, we are using one based on science. Second, Ruth is not running for office."

  "Yeah, but there are crossover implications in the study that I think could tell us a lot about the potential jurors," Howard says. "Just hear me out, okay? So Terkildsen took a random sample of about three hundred and fifty white people from the jury pool in Jefferson County, Kentucky. She made up three sets of packets about a fake candidate for governor that had the same biography, the same resume and political platform. The only difference was that in some of the head shots, the candidate was a white man. In others, it was Photoshopped to be a light-skinned black man or a dark-skinned black man. The voters were asked to identify if they were racially biased, and if they tended to be aware of that racial bias."

  I motion with my hands to hurry him up.

  "The white politician got the most positive responses," Howard says.

  "Big surprise."

  "Yeah, but that's not the interesting part. As prejudice increased, the rating of the light-skinned black man dropped quicker than the rating of the dark-skinned black man. But when prejudiced voters were divided into those who were aware of their racism and those who generally weren't, things changed. The people who didn't care if they looked prejudiced were harder on the dark-skinned black man than on the light-skinned black man. The voters who were worried about what people would think of them if they were racist, however, rated the dark-skinned black way higher than the light-skinned black. You get it, right? If a white person is trying extra hard to not look racist, they're going to overcompensate for their prejudice by suppressing their real feelings about the darker-skinned person."

  I stare at him. "Why are you telling me this?"

  "Because Ruth is black. Light-skinned, but still black. And you can't necessarily trust the white people in that jury pool if they tell you they aren't prejudiced. They may be a lot more implicitly racist than they show on the outside, and that makes them wild cards for the jury."

  I look down at the table. Odette is wrong. Murder is not monochromatic. We know that from the school-to-prison pipeline. There are so, so many reasons the cycle is hard to break--and one of them is that white jurors come into a trial with bias. They are far more likely to make concessions for a defendant who looks like them than for one who doesn't.

  "All right," I say to Howard. "What's your plan?"

  --

  WHEN I CRAWL into bed that night, Micah is already asleep. But then he reaches out and wraps his arm around me. "No," I say. "I am too tired to do anything right now."

  "Even thank me?" he says.

  I turn to face him. "Why?"

  "Because," he says. "I found you a neonatologist."

  Immediately I sit up. "And?"

  "And we're going to see him this weekend. He's a guy I knew from med school."

  "What did you tell him?"

  "That my crazy lawyer wife is going all Lysistrata on me until I can get her an expert in the field."

  I laugh, then frame Micah's face with my hands and kiss him, long and slow. "Go figure," I say. "I've gotten my second wind."

  In one quick move he grabs me and rolls, so that I am pinned beneath him. His smile gleams in the light of the moon. "If you'll do that for a neonatologist," he murmurs, "what would you give me if I found you something really impressive, like a parasitologist? Or a leprologist?"

  "You spoil me," I say, and I pull him down to me.

  --

  I MEET RUTH at the back entrance of the courthouse, just in case Wallace Mercy has decided that jury selection is worth his time and energy. She is wearing a plum suit that I went with her to buy at T.J.Maxx last week, and a crisp white shirt. Her hair is pulled back and knotted at the nape of her neck. She looks every inch the professional, and I would have assumed she is at court because she is an attorney if not for the fact that her knees are shaking so uncontrollably they are knocking together.

  I take her arm. "Relax. Honestly, this isn't worth getting nervous over."

  She looks at me. "It's just suddenly...very real."

  I introduce her to Howard, and as they shake hands I see something almost imperceptible pass between them--an acknowledgment that it is surprising for both of them to be in this courthouse, for different reasons. Howard and I flank Ruth as we walk into the courtroom and take our seats at the defense table.

  For all that Judge Thunder is an asshole to us attorneys, juries eat him up. He looks the part, with wavy silver hair and grave lines of experience bracketing his mouth, forming parentheses around whatever wisdom he has yet to speak. When our hundred potential jurors are jammed into the courtroom, he gives preliminary instructions.

  "Remember," I whisper to Howard, leaning behind Ruth's back. "Your job is to take notes. So many notes that your hand cramps. If one of those jurors flinches at a certain word, I need to know the word. If they fall asleep, I want to know when."

  He nods as I scan the faces of the potential jurors. I recognize some, from their Facebook photos. But even those I don't recall have expressions I am used to seeing: there are the faces of those I secretly call Boy Scouts, who are delighted to be performing this duty to their country. There are the Morgan Stanleys--businessmen who keep checking their watches because their time is clearly more important than spending the day in a jury box. There are the Repeat Offenders, who have been through this process before and wonder why the hell they've been called again.

  "Ladies and gentlemen, I'm Judge Thunder, and I'd like to welcome you to my courtroom."

  Oh, good grief.

  "In this case, the State is represented by our prosecutor Odette Lawton. Her job is to prove this case by reason of evidence, beyond a reasonable doubt. The defendant is represented by Kennedy McQuarrie." As he begins to list the charges that Ruth was indicted for--murder and involuntary manslaughter--her knee starts trembling so hard I reach under the table and press it flat.

  "I will explain to you later what those charges mean," Judge Thunder says. "But at this moment, is there any member of the panel who knows the parties in this case?"

  One juror raises his hand.

  "Can you approach the bench?" the judge asks.

  Odette and I move closer for the conference as a noise machine is turned on so that the rest of the jury cannot hear what this guy says. He points to Odette. "She locked up my brother on a drug charge, and she's a lying bitch."

  Needless to say, he's excused.

  After a few more blanket queries, the judge smiles at the group. "All right, folks. I'm going to excuse you, and the bailiff will take you to the jury lounge. We'll be calling you in one at a time so that the counselors can ask some individual follow-ups. Please don't talk about your experiences with your fellow jurors. As I told you, the State has the burden of proof. We haven't started to take evidence yet, so I urge you to keep an open mind and to be honest with your answers in front of the court. We want to make sure you are comfortable sitting as a juror in this case, just as the parties involved have the right to feel that their process can be judged by someone fair and impartial."

  If only the judge were the same, I think.

  Voir dire is a cocktail party without any booze. You want to schmooze your jurors, you want them to like you. You want to act interested in their careers, even if that career is