CHAPTER ONE

Nina Forester saw the reminder on her calendar; damn she thought she was due at the courthouse today for jury duty and her work schedule was jammed. The beautiful, flawlessly groomed redhead had started a one station beauty salon right out of high school then Beauty College and now she owned her own high end beauty salon/spa and her co-workers were all carefully selected, independent contractors.  Nina was already losing money because of this blasted civic duty.

Blake Givens was running late and pulled into the jurors parking area taking up two parking spaces with his fancy Porsche. He remembered to toss his parking permit on the dash before he hurried into the courthouse.  Blake had spent the entire previous day at his country club trying to get out of the summons but had failed to avoid his obligation for the first time in his life.  No one seemed to want to mess with this particular judge.  Screw her Blake thought probably a damn lesbian.

Alice Hawsworth, twice divorced with blue hair and long brightly colored nails lived in a mobile home with her precious little poodle and a pink flamingo on her front lawn.  Alice was missing all of her favorite television shows today, especially Ellen and that woman everyone loved to hate, Bethenny Frankel.  Her sweet little poodle must miss his mama and would probably mess on the carpet because mama wasn’t there to take him out on his morning and afternoon walks.  Alice had an annoying habit of clicking her longs nails against each other when she was bored and she must be very bored this morning because there was a constant click, click, click coming from her direction.

Grace Devaney, a petite, graying, middle aged widow taught history and U.S. Constitution in the local grammar school and as well informed as she was she couldn’t remember any cases in town that would garner this kind of attention.  She racked her brain but nothing came to mind and none of the other potential jurors seemed to have a clue about all of the security and the news presence. 

Apparently the prosecution and defense had gone over the jurors questionnaires they all returned to the court because at least half of the jury pool was dismissed almost immediately. The crowds outside the courtroom grew and news van from as far away as the state capitol had begun to show up before lunch.  The remaining jurors were served box lunches in a conference room to avoid the news presence outside the courthouse.

At three that afternoon the judge called the prosecution and defense into chambers and asked both for a list of fifteen acceptable jurors, twelve to serve and three alternates.   The judge seated eight jurors acceptable to both sides and told  prosecution and defense that they had asked for a sequestered jury so they had until five to make their choices or the remainder would be sent out into the night with the news people and protestors because she couldn’t sequester anyone that hadn’t been selected for duty.  The tough, grey haired, female judge called in the bailiffs and assigned each one of the bailiffs a juror to contact and bring to her chambers immediately.

The black robed judge with cropped, iron grey hair informed them that they had been selected and that the jury was to be sequestered.  They all looked at each other and began protesting.  The judge pounded her gavel and told them any further demonstration would be met with contempt charges and jail time.  Each was sent home with a bailiff to pack for two weeks and the judge stared them all down coldly before releasing them to the custody of the bailiff’s.

“For Christ’s sake, do I have to leave my Porsche parked in a damned public lot?” Blake Givens asked the bailiff?

The bailiff handed him a ticket and a towing notice and told him to pick it up after the trial.

“What the hell?” Blake asked.

“Apparently, you were illegally parked, taking up two spaces,” the officer told him.

Blake huffed and puffed to no avail and sat silently as the bailiff drove him to his penthouse condo and watched him pack.

Nina Forester wasn’t any happier about jury duty but she was pleasant to the bailiff because she might find him useful later.  Ms. Forester  was a consummate businesswoman and she needed to get back to her beauty spa as soon as possible to keep business from falling off.  If things kept going well she was planning to expand and introduce her own product line into the spa and if that was a success she would start selling her line in retail stores all across the country.  Even in high school Nina had planned to be a millionaire before she was forty and civic duty, marriage and babies didn’t figure into those plans.

Alice Hawsworth was almost hysterical as she was driven home to pack.  Her spoiled poodle could be heard a block away barking and the neighbors descended on the official car when it pulled into the drive bringing the manager with an official warning.  The uniformed bailiff ran everyone but the manager off and told Alice she’d better make some arrangements quickly or she would be held in contempt.  Alice called her daughter and made arrangement for the beloved pet and packed enough polyester pants suits to last for two weeks along with different colored nail polish for each day.  Luckily she had her hair done the previous day.

Grace Devaney was the only happy camper in the group and took pleasure in calling her principal at home and informing him of her circumstances.  He hemmed and hawed a bit and she handed the phone to the bailiff and neatly packed her bags.  When she tried to pack her lap top the bailiff told her to leave it or it might be confiscated.  Indignantly, she complied with the judge’s order.

There was a traffic jam when they all arrived back at the hotel.  The streets seemed to be full of protestors and the lobby was swarming with reporters but they were escorted straight upstairs on a reserved elevator to their own floor.  The whole floor was reserved and the jurors were each assigned their own private room with bath.

The judge got her way when the attorneys saw the growing demonstrations and the trial was set to begin the following day. That night they were served dinner in a private dining room and given a choice of books or movies to watch on their televisions.

Alice Hawsworth was hysterical again along with a few sports fans when they learned that their televisions weren’t hooked up to cable and their entertainment was to be strictly censored.  They were told they could sleep in the following morning because the judge would be occupied with motions but that they should be prepared to join the trial at one thirty.

(C) August 2013 Karen MacEanruig