The jury was ready. After forty-two hours of deliberations that followed seventy-one days of trial that included 530 hours of testimony from four dozen witnesses, and after a lifetime of sitting silently as the lawyers haggled and the judge lectured and the spectators watched like hawks for telltale signs, the jury was ready.
Key Features
Locked away in the jury room, secluded and secure,
ten of them proudly signed their names to the verdict while the other two pouted in their corners,
detached and miserable in their dissension.
There were hugs and smiles and no small measure of self-congratulation because they had survived this little war and
could now march proudly back into the arena with a decision they had rescued through sheer determination and
the dogged pursuit of compromise.
