The Runaway Jury (13 page)

Tobacco smoke is extremely complex in makeup, with over four thousand compounds identified in its composition. A total of sixteen known carcinogens, fourteen alkalis, and numerous other compounds with known biological activity are included in the four thousand plus compounds. Tobacco smoke is a mixture of gases in tiny droplets, and when a person inhales, about fifty percent of the inhaled smoke is retained in the lungs, and some of the droplets are deposited directly in the walls of the bronchial tubes.

Two lawyers from Rohr’s team quickly set up a large tripod in the center of the courtroom, and Dr. Bronsky left the witness stand to lecture a bit. The first chart was a list of all the compounds known to exist in tobacco smoke. He didn’t name them all, because he didn’t have to. Each of the names looked menacing, and when viewed as a group they looked downright deadly.

The next chart was a list of the known carcinogens, and Bronsky gave each one a brief summary. In addition to these sixteen, he said, tapping his pointing stick in his left hand, there may well be other, yet undetected, carcinogens present in tobacco
smoke. And it’s quite possible that two or more of these might act in combination to reinforce each other to cause cancer.

They dwelt on the carcinogens for the entire morning. With each new chart, Jerry Fernandez and the other smokers felt sicker and sicker until Sylvia the Poodle was almost light-headed as they left the jury box to eat lunch. Not surprisingly, the four of them first went to the “smoke hole,” as Lou Dell called it, for a quick one before they joined the rest to eat.

Lunch was waiting and evidently the wrinkles had been ironed out. The table was set with china and the iced tea was poured into real glasses. Mr. O’Reilly served custom-made sandwiches to those who’d ordered them, and he opened large bowls of steaming vegetables and pasta for the others. Nicholas spared no compliment.

FITCH WAS IN THE VIEWING ROOM with two of his jury people when the call came. Konrad nervously knocked on the door. There were strict orders against getting near the room without authorization from Fitch.

“It’s Marlee. Line four,” Konrad whispered, and Fitch froze at the news. He then walked quickly to his office door down a makeshift hallway.

“Trace it,” he ordered.

“We are.”

“I’m sure she’s at a pay phone.”

Fitch punched button four on his phone, said, “Hello.”

“Mr. Fitch?” came the familiar voice.

“Yes.”

“Do you know why they were staring at you?”

“No.”

“I’ll tell you tomorrow.”

“Tell me now.”

“No. Because you’re tracing the call. And if you keep tracing the calls, then I’ll stop calling.”

“Okay. I’ll stop tracing.”

“And you expect me to believe you?”

“What do you want?”

“Later, Fitch.” She hung up. Fitch replayed the conversation as he waited for her phone to be located. Konrad appeared with the expected news that it was indeed a pay phone, this one in a mall in Gautier, thirty minutes away.

Fitch fell into a large, rented swivel chair and studied the wall for a moment. “She wasn’t in the courtroom this morning,” he said softly, thinking aloud, tugging at the tip of his goatee. “So how did she know they were staring at me?”

“Who was staring?” asked Konrad. His duties did not include sentry work in the courtroom. He never left the dime store. Fitch explained the curious incident of being stared at by the jury.

“So who’s talking to her?” Konrad asked.

“That’s the question.”

THE AFTERNOON was spent on nicotine. From one-thirty until three, then from three-thirty until adjournment at five, the jurors learned more than they cared to about nicotine: It is a poison contained in tobacco smoke. Each cigarette contains from one to three milligrams of nicotine, and for smokers who inhale, as did Jacob Wood, up to ninety percent of the nicotine is absorbed into the lungs. Dr. Bronsky spent most of his time on his feet, pointing at various parts of the human body displayed in a
brightly colored, life-size drawing mounted on the tripod. He explained in great detail how nicotine causes constriction of the superficial vessels in the limbs; it raises the blood pressure; it increases the pulse rate; it makes the heart work harder. Its effects on the digestive tract are insidious and complex. It can cause nausea and vomiting, especially when one begins to smoke. Secretions of saliva and movement of the gut are first stimulated and then depressed. It acts as a stimulant on the central nervous system. Bronsky was methodical yet sincere; he made a single cigarette sound like a dose of lethal poison.

And the worst thing about nicotine is that it’s addictive. The last hour—again timed perfectly by Rohr—was spent convincing the jurors that nicotine was wildly addictive, and that this knowledge had been around for at least four decades.

The levels of nicotine can easily be manipulated during the manufacturing process.

If, and Bronsky stressed the word “if,” the levels of nicotine were artificially increased, then smokers would naturally become addicted much faster. More addicted smokers means more cigarettes sold.

It was a perfect spot to end the day.

Nine

O
n Tuesday morning, Nicholas arrived at the jury room early, as Lou Dell was brewing the first pot of decaf and carefully arranging the daily platter of fresh rolls and doughnuts. A collection of sparkling new cups and saucers sat near the food. Nicholas claimed to hate coffee from a plastic cup, and fortunately two of his colleagues held similar prejudices. A list of requests had been quickly acceded to by His Honor.

Lou Dell hastily finished her business when he entered the room. He smiled and greeted her pleasantly, but she held a grudge from their earlier skirmishes. He poured coffee and opened a newspaper.

As Nicholas expected, Retired Colonel Frank Herrera arrived shortly after eight, almost a full hour before they were due, clutching two newspapers, one
The Wall Street Journal
. He wanted the room to himself, but managed a smile at Easter.

“Mornin’, Colonel,” Nicholas said warmly. “You’re here early.”

“So are you.”

“Yeah, I couldn’t sleep. Found myself dreaming of nicotine and black lungs.” Nicholas studied the sports page.

Herrera stirred his coffee and sat down across the table. “I smoked for ten years in the Army,” he said, sitting stiffly, shoulders square, chin up, always ready to bolt to attention. “But I had the good sense to quit.”

“Some people can’t, I guess. Like Jacob Wood.”

The Colonel grunted with disgust, and opened a newspaper. 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.

Nicholas turned a page, said, “Why’d you quit?”

“Because it’s bad for you. Doesn’t take a genius, you know. Cigarettes are deadly. Everybody knows that.”

If Herrera had been so blunt on at least two of the pretrial questionnaires, he wouldn’t be sitting where he was now. Nicholas remembered the questions well. The fact that Herrera felt so strongly probably meant only one thing: He wanted to be on the jury. He was retired military, probably bored with golf, tired of his wife, looking for something to do, and obviously carrying a grudge about something.

“So you think cigarettes should be outlawed?” Nicholas asked. The question was one he’d posed to the mirror a thousand times, and he had all the right comebacks to all the possible answers.

Herrera slowly placed the newspaper on the table and took a long drink of black coffee. “No. I think people should have more sense than to smoke three
packs a day for almost thirty years. What the hell do you expect? Perfect health?” His tone was sarcastic, and left no doubt that he’d walked into jury service with his mind made up.

“When did you become convinced of this?”

“Are you dense? It ain’t that hard to figure out.”

“Maybe that’s your opinion. But you certainly should’ve expressed yourself during voir dire.”

“What’s voir dire?”

“The jury selection process. We were asked questions covering these very matters. I don’t recall you saying a word.”

“Never felt like it.”

“You should have.”

Herrera’s cheeks flushed red, but he hesitated for a second. This guy Easter after all knew the law, or at least knew more than the rest of them. Maybe he had done something wrong. Maybe there was a way Easter could report him and get him bumped from the jury. Maybe he would be held in contempt, sent to jail, or fined.

And then another thought hit him. They weren’t supposed to be discussing the case, right? So how could Easter report anything to the Judge? Seemed like Easter would risk getting in trouble himself if he went and repeated anything he heard in the jury room. Herrera relaxed a bit. “Lemme guess. You’re gonna push hard for a big verdict, lots of punitives and stuff like that.”

“No, Mr. Herrera. Unlike you, I haven’t made up my mind. I think we’ve listened to three witnesses, all for the plaintiff, so there are many yet to come. I think I’ll wait until all the evidence is in, from both sides, then I’ll try to sort things out. I thought that’s what we promised to do.”

“Yeah, well, me too. I can be persuaded, you know.” He suddenly had an interest in the editorials. The door burst open, and Mr. Herman Grimes entered with his walking stick tapping away in front of him. Lou Dell and Mrs. Grimes followed. Nicholas, as usual, rose to prepare his foreman’s coffee, a ritual now.

FITCH STARED at his phones until nine. She’d mentioned a possible call today.

Not only did she play games, but evidently she was not above lying. He had no desire to be stared at again, so he locked his door and walked to the viewing room where two of his jury experts were sitting in the dark, staring at a crooked scene on the wall, waiting for the courtroom adjustment. Someone had kicked McAdoo’s briefcase, and the camera was off by ten feet. Jurors one, two, seven, and eight were out of the picture, and only half of Millie Dupree and Rikki Coleman behind her were visible.

The jury had been seated for two minutes, and so McAdoo was pinned to his seat and couldn’t use his cellphone. He didn’t know some bigfoot under the table had kicked the wrong briefcase. Fitch swore at the screen, then returned to his office where he scribbled a note. He gave it to a well-dressed errand boy, who dashed up the street, entered the courtroom like one of a hundred young associates or paralegals, and slipped the note to the defense table.

The camera inched to the left, and the full jury came into view. McAdoo pushed a bit too hard and cut off half of Jerry Fernandez and Angel Weese, juror number six. Fitch cursed again. He’d wait until the morning recess and get McAdoo on the phone.

* * *

DR. BRONSKY was rested and ready for another day of thoughtful discourse on the ravages of tobacco smoke. Having discussed the carcinogens in tobacco smoke, and the nicotine, he was ready to move to the next compounds of medical interest: irritants.

Rohr served up the fat pitches, Bronsky swung from the heels. Tobacco smoke contains a variety of compounds—ammonia, volatile acids, aldehydes, phenols, and ketones—and these have an irritant effect on the mucous membrane. Bronsky once again left the witness stand and walked to a fresh cutaway diagram of the upper torso and head of a human. This showed the jury the respiratory tract, the throat, the bronchial tubes, and the lungs. In this area of the body, tobacco smoke stimulates secretion of mucus. At the same time, it delays the removal of the mucus by retarding the action of the ciliated lining of the bronchial tubes.

Bronsky had been remarkably adept at keeping the medical jargon on a level reachable by the average layman, and he slowed a notch to explain what happens to the bronchial tubes when smoke is inhaled. Two other large, colorful diagrams were mounted in front of the bench, and Bronsky went to work with his pointer. He explained to the jury that the bronchial tubes are lined with a membrane equipped with fine, hairlike fibers called cilia, which move together in waves and control the movement of the mucus on the surface of the membrane. This movement of the cilia acts to free the lungs from virtually all the dust and germs that are inhaled.

Smoking, of course, wreaks havoc with this process. Once Bronsky and Rohr were as certain as they
could be that the jurors understood how things were supposed to work, they quickly moved forward to explain just precisely how smoking irritated the filtering process and caused all sorts of damage in the respiratory system.

They went on about mucus and membranes and cilia.

The first visible yawn came from Jerry Fernandez in the back row. He’d spent his Monday night at one of the casinos watching the football game and drinking more than he’d planned. He smoked two packs a day, and he was well aware that the habit was unhealthy. Still, he needed one now.

More yawns followed, and at eleven-thirty, Judge Harkin sent them out for a badly needed two-hour lunch.

The stroll through downtown Biloxi had been Nicholas’ idea, one he’d put in a letter to the Judge on Monday. It seemed absurd to keep them confined to a small room all day with no hope of fresh air. It wasn’t as if their lives were in jeopardy, or that they’d be assailed by unknown conspirators if let loose on the sidewalks. Just simply put Madam Lou Dell and Willis the guard with another lethargic deputy, give them a route, say, six or eight city blocks, forbid the jurors from speaking to anyone, as usual, and, well, turn them loose for thirty minutes after lunch so the food could settle. It seemed like a harmless idea, and in fact upon further reflection Judge Harkin embraced it as his own.

Nicholas, however, had shown the letter to Lou Dell, and so when lunch was being finished, she was explaining that a walk was planned, thanks to Mr. Easter, who had written the Judge. It seemed such a humble idea to receive such unbridled admiration.

The temperature was in the low eighties, the air clear and fresh, the trees trying their best to turn colors. Lou Dell and Willis led the way while the four smokers—Fernandez, Poodle, Stella Hulic, and Angel Weese—hung at the back thoroughly enjoying the deep inhaling and long exhaling. To hell with Bronsky and his mucus and his membranes, and to hell with Fricke and his gross pictures of Mr. Wood’s sticky black lungs. They were outdoors now. The light, salt air, and conditions were perfect for a smoke.