J.D. Trafford - Michael Collins 02 - No Time to Die (13 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

The courtroom’s back door opened at 8:00 a.m., as promised. The bailiff instructed everyone to rise, and Judge Delaney strode into the courtroom in his black robe. As he stepped up to the bench and walked to his large chair, Judge Delaney scanned the room with his ice-blue eyes, smiled, and shrugged. He waved the courtroom down with a practiced expression of humbleness.

“
Please, you may all be seated, and thank you all for being here on time.”

Judge Delaney set a large white binder down on the bench, and then he sat down.

“We’ve got a lot to do and we’re going to do it.” Judge Delaney glanced up at the ornate bronze clock in the back of the courtroom. Then he scanned the room, noting each of the faces.

When Judge Delaney’s eyes met
Elana Estrada, Michael felt his client tense. Still looking at Elana, Judge Delaney said, “We have an offer from the defendant. I assume that offer is still valid.”

Harrison Grant stood; Brian
McNaughten remained seated and watched his highly paid attorney work.

“
Yes, Your Honor.” Harrison Grant looked at Michael and Jane with pity. He shook his head.

Harrison Grant was in his prime. In a big firm world where lawyers rarely went to trial, that was now almost the only thing that Harrison Grant did. He traveled around the country doing one trial after another for whatever client was willing to pay him the most.

“But I should note, Your Honor, that my client will withdraw that offer as soon as we begin jury selection. We have to make an example of these people and take a stand. My client can’t simply throw money at every nuisance lawsuit that is filed –”

Judge Delaney raised his hand, silencing the great Harrison Grant with a simple gesture.

“Thank you Mr. Grant.” Judge Delaney turned toward Michael, Jane and their client. He smiled. His eyes twinkled. “And now you, Ms. Nance. Any thoughts related to the offer?”

Jane stood. She fiddled with her pen. Her voice was a little shaky.

“My client still rejects the offer.”

“
You’re sure, Ms. Nance?” he asked.“Yes, Your Honor,” Jane nodded.

The twinkle went out of Judge Delaney’s eyes just a bit, but soon returned. It was as if he remembered how much fun he was going to have at a trial.

Judge Delaney clasped his hands together

“Notify the jury office that they can bring up the pool, he said to his law clerk” Then he addressed the attorneys, “And in the meantime, here are some things to remember. Always stand when addressing me.  Never approach a witness without asking permission. Never talk over me. Never surprise me. And never lose control of yourself or your client. If you do, you will regret it. If you violate these rules, I will embarrass you in front of the jury. That is a promise.” Judge Delaney paused, a smile, then, slowly he emphasized each individual word. “And none of us want to be embarrassed, right?” 

###

Six.

Six was the magic number. The jury would be comprised of six people. These six would hold the future of
Elana Estrada and her family in their hands as well as the future of Jane’s law firm.

The pool of potential jurors were led into the courtroom. Everyone stood for them and watched.

Of course, Michael and Jane tried to play it cool, but the reality had set in. They were about to accuse one of the area’s largest employers of killing an immigrant, and then they were going to ask that the jury give the family an astronomical amount of money in return. Part of the money was to compensate Elana Estrada for her loss, but most of the money was to punish Jolly Boy.

It was called “punitive damages,” and it was only available if Michael and Jane proved Jolly Boy acted in reckless disregard of the safety and health of others. Since Michael and Jane couldn’t even prove that Jolly Boy had acted at all, any damages, at this point, were a long shot. Punitive damages were a fantasy.

The potential jurors sat down on the benches in the back of the courtroom. When they were seated, Judge Delaney directed the attorneys to sit.

“
Let’s get started.” Judge Delaney smiled. He took in the mass of people that had just come through the door. They were young and old. Some wore T-shirts and others wore business suits. Nearly all of them carried big bags filled with paperback novels, magazines, notepads, and anything else that would fill time while waiting to be summoned up from the big jury room in the courthouse basement.

Now they had arrived.

“Good morning.” Judge Delaney’s charisma was turned to high. His deep voice filled the room. He exuded energy, as if to compensate for the sad mass of humanity that had just landed in front of him.

“
Many of you have your own ideas of what jury service is or is not. My guess is that most of you were not happy about being here, disrupting your lives and inconveniencing your family and co-workers.”

Judge Delaney waited until he received a few head nods in agreement. He wanted everyone to acknowledge that he understood the juror’s plight. But, he also made it clear that he was in control. This was his show.

“I brought you up here this morning related to a civil case. Civil cases are different than criminal cases. Criminal cases are brought by prosecutors on behalf of the State of Florida and the defendants are charged with crimes that may ultimately cost them their liberty. In short, they could go to jail.”

Judge Delaney paused again, waiting for a head nod or two.

“This is a civil case. Civil cases are brought by one person against another person. Liberty and imprisonment are not at issue. Civil cases are about compensation for alleged wrongs. For example, you get hit by a car and have medical bills due to the car accident. Therefore, you sue the driver of the car that hit you and seek payment for those medical bills. That’s a civil case. And, that is what we have here. This is not a car accident case, but it is a civil case brought by one person against another person. It is a wrongful death lawsuit brought by the family of Thomas Estrada against Jolly Boy Farms.”

Judge Delaney took a sip of water, and then set the glass back down on the bench.

“Our Constitution gives every party in a civil case the right to have a jury decide whether they are at fault and must pay. Those are big questions – important questions – and that is why you are all here. Our judicial system needs a jury to fulfill this constitutional mandate. We need you to be fair. We need you be willing to give your time and we need you to be just, acting without passion or prejudice.”

Judge Delaney gave weight to each word. Not one of the people in the room would think it was an act or a show. It was authentic. In a world of phonies, Judge Delaney believed in what he was saying. They respected that.

“Will you help me?” Judge Delaney asked. “Let me hear whether or not you will do this, okay? I ask: Will you play this important part in our system of government?”

Every one of the jurors said yes. Some louder than others, but they all said yes.

It was amazing.

In just over two minutes, Judge Delaney took a sad, tired, and frustrated jury pool and transformed them into an army of patriots that would do whatever he asked of them.

Delaney was a damn good judge
, Michael thought.

###

The selection process took the rest of the morning. Judge Delaney took the lead, asking jurors about general concepts of the law and their background. Then each of the attorneys had an opportunity. Finally, the pool was whittled down to 14.

They needed six jurors and two alternates.

Each side had the opportunity to strike some of the remaining 14, three each.

Judge Delaney excused the remaining jurors for lunch to give the attorneys privacy during their final selection.

The jurors filed out of the courtroom. Delaney’s law clerk led them to a smaller jury room on the same floor. This jury room had a window and bottled water. The jurors were moving up in the world.“Mind if we take the courtroom?” Harrison Grant asked Michael and Jane,  gesturing back to a thin woman in a dark suit and black glasses and two young men behind her. She was a jury consultant from Los Angeles. Michael couldn’t remember her name, but he recognized her from the glossy solicitations she’d sent out when he had worked at Wabash, Kramer and Moore.“As you can see, we have quite a few people working on this,” Harrison continued

“That’s fine.” Michael packed up his things. “But a consultant isn’t going to save you on this.” It was a small attempt at bravado, but Harrison Grant shrugged it off. He gave no response as Michael, Jane, and Elana Estrada retreated to the small conference room across the hall.

Kermit and Pace were waiting in the hallway, and followed them into the room.

“Don’t like the teacher, man. She looks like she’s been oppressed her whole life. She couldn’t give a rat’s ass about some Mexicano getting the shaft.”

Elana
looked at Kermit, and then back at Michael and Jane. She didn’t understand all of what Kermit had said, but she was obviously concerned that they were going to pick a jury based on his advice.

Michael put his hand on
Elana’s shoulder.

“
Let’s just sit down and do this rationally, okay? Go through them one at a time.”

He smiled at
Elana.

“
It’s going to be fine,” Michael said. “We’ll get a good jury.”

###

Lunch was nonexistent. The hour and a half felt like a five-minute bathroom break, and they were now back in the courtroom.

Even though it had already been planned, Jane was having second thoughts about doing the opening argument. Her confidence was low. During the break, they had debated again about who should do it.

Michael had more experience, but in the end, Michael had convinced her. It was Jane’s case. It was her career. She’d do the opening argument.

Michael looked at her, and then he looked at the jurors. The original pool had filled nearly the entire courtroom just that morning. Now there were only eight sitting in the box, six jurors and two alternates. Michael always felt sorry for the alternates. They had no idea about their status – they rarely did.

About 20 years ago, there had been some studies that found that alternate jurors who knew that they were alternates didn’t listen as well as the other jurors. The alternates in the study figured that the likelihood of them actually deliberating was small, so there wasn’t any reason for them to invest themselves in the case. As a result, judges and attorneys decided it was best to keep the alternates in the dark. The alternate juror’s surprise when he or she was  excused at the end of the trial and their disappointment was now simply an unfortunate by-product of the law factory.

Michael put on a friendly face and made eye contact with each of the jurors. When he got to the end of the row, he saw the old, white engineer from the suburbs. Now he was Juror No. 5. He had snuck through. It was a tough decision. Maybe it was a mistake not to strike him, but nobody would ever really know.

With the parties and jurors settled, Judge Delaney arranged the papers in front of him. He called the case on the record, and then nodded at Jane. It was a prompt for her to proceed. As the plaintiffs, Jane was required to go first.

She was a little wobbly as she stood, but she found her confidence as she approached the podium. Jane set her notes on the stand and then took a step to the side. The jurors sat up. The men, in particular, were happy for the excuse to stare at Jane.

“Jolly Boy broke the rules.” Jane gave each word a sense of importance, and when she completed this sentence, she waited. That was the theme of their case. It sounded simple, too simple, but simplicity won cases.

Lawyers always overestimated the capacity of a juror to take in the massive amount of information and facts that they had assembled. Lawyers also overestimated how interesting they were. Jurors got bored. Simplicity wins.

“My client, Tommy Estrada, is dead because the defendants broke the rules. Tommy Estrada worked in the fields that Jolly Boy owns. He picked tomatoes and anything else that Jolly Boy wanted him to pick. But in the end, he died because Jolly Boy didn’t follow the rules.”

“That is the testimony that you will hear,” Jane continued. “You will hear about the rules, and you will hear about how Jolly Boy broke them over and over again. The first rule is that you give your workers a break. Every worker, under the law, is entitled to a break in the morning, a break for lunch, and a break in the afternoon.”

Jane paused. Her tone was casual, but serious.

“The defendant broke that rule.”

Jane stepped back to the podium. She glanced down at her notes, a rehearsed movement to show that she was moving onto to the next point.

“The second rule is that you wait 24 hours after spraying the fields with deadly chemicals before sending your workers back into them. The defendant broke that rule, too. As a result, Tommy Estrada got cancer.”

Jane took a sip of water, and then continued.

“The rules also say that you can’t fire an employee simply because they are injured or sick, but the defendant did that all the time. They did that to Tommy.”

Jane surveyed the jurors sitting in front of her, making eye contact with each one, and then holding eye contact with the old engineer, Juror No. 5.

“And then finally, you can’t kill somebody. That’s the biggest rule of all.”

The courtroom was silent. Jane didn’t sound shrill or like some activist chained to a tree. She sounded cool, like a professional.

“That’s our case.” Jane nodded, and then she pointed and turned toward the defendant’s table. Harrison Grant stared at her, a practiced look of bemusement and pity. The Jolly Boy CEO, Brian McNaughten, sat next to his attorney. His head was down, scribbling notes in a notebook.

“
This defendant broke the rules,” Jane concluded. “My client died, leaving a wife and children to fend for themselves. And that’s why we’re here. I’m asking you to hold defendant Jolly Boy accountable for breaking the rules. Thank you.”

Jane waited a moment, and then collected her things from the podium. She walked back to the plaintiff’s table and sat down. Michael scribbled a note on his legal pad and slid it over to her: NICE JOB!

He meant it, too. Jane had set up the case beautifully. She laid out their theme. She previewed their testimony, but didn’t allow it to get bogged down in details. Unfortunately, Harrison Grant had a response.

###

Jolly Boy’s attorney stood and walked over to the podium, but he didn’t give the jury a smile. Instead, he sighed. It wasn’t an obnoxious sigh, nor did it appear fake. It was a simple, audible breath that would never appear in any court transcript, but the jurors certainly saw it and heard it. And in that brief moment, Harrison Grant landed his first punch.

Michael felt Jane tense next to him. She felt the punch, too, and it landed hard.

Harrison Grant had presence. His suit and tie, his haircut, his mannerisms, his voice – they all worked together to establish credibility. Although Jane Nance was pretty to look at, Harrison Grant was the one attorney in the room that any juror would hire, if given the choice. He had authority, and he leveraged that authority.

“I hope you listened carefully to what the Plaintiff just said, because at the end of this trial, you’re going to have to hold her to her promises. She promised to offer proof that Jolly Boy broke the rules, but at the end of this trial, you’ll realize that she doesn’t have any proof that Jolly Boy did any of those things. All of the rules that these trial lawyers talked about …” Harrison Grant said the word ‘trial lawyers’ with disgust, as if he was not one.