Black pinstriped suit with extremely wide stripes, blood-red tie whose brand I can never remember with a knot as big as his fist, and a pocket handkerchief to match. He’s splashed on a bit too much cologne this morning for my taste, but then I’ve always considered any cologne at all on a man pretty much a deal-breaker.
McGoey nods at Katherine Welsh. She nods back, almost imperceptibly, without changing expression before turning her back on him and saying something to Reid Burke, her assistant DA and second chair.
I introduce McGoey to Norma.
“I’ve heard a lot about you,” McGoey tells her.
“Sadly,” she says, “I’m forced to say the same about you.”
McGoey grins. “Don’t worry, I’ll grow on you.”
“Yeah,” Norma says as we watch the first group of jurors filing into the box. “Somewhat like mold.”
McGoey focuses on me now, real excitement on his face, rubbing his palms together like a kid about to have an ice cream sundae set down in front of him.
“Okay,” he says, “let’s do this, counselor.”
I angle my chair just slightly, so I’m facing him directly.
“Thomas,” I say. “Look at me.”
He does.
“Don’t talk,” I say.
“Listen,” he says, “you’ve made it abundantly clear that you don’t want me here.”
“And I’ve tried to hide itsowell,” I say.
“But Iama pretty damn good lawyer,” he says, “and I can help if you’ll just let me.”
“And when I do need your help,” I say, “you’ll practically be the first to know.”
We all hear “All rise” then as Judge Horton has just walked in.
“I used to date lawyers,” Norma says to Thomas McGoey. “But I’ve been clean for a long time.”
THIRTY-FIVE
THE STANDARD FOR POTENTIAL jurors, no matter where the case is being tried and no matter how serious the charges, is always supposed to be the same:
Any potential juror who admits that he or she or they can’t put aside their personal feelings and biases and apply the law impartially is summarily dismissed, no parting gifts, thanks for showing up and at least trying to do your civic duty, good-bye, drive home safely.
“If they do promise to be impartial,” Norma Banks has told me, “then it becomes our job to decide which ones are trying too hard to get into the box and which ones are trying too hard to run the hell away from it.”
Some, I know from my own experience, are just pissed they got called, don’t want to be bothered, are more than willing to do everything except direct-message the judge to tell him or her or them that there’s no way they can be impartial, just because sitting through a long trial seems to them like doing hard time of their own.
Through it all, though, the charge from the law for Katherine Welsh and me is the same, despite the fact that we have our own, and wildly opposite, agendas, and view the other side as the dark side:
To somehow seat a competent and hopefully diverse jurythat properly represents the community and will give the defendant a fair trial and the state an equally fair hearing.
Now, that sounds good and even high-minded. But all trial lawyers, either side of the aisle, know it’s all complete BS. Both Katherine Welsh, repping the state, and me, defending a client who reminds me of every single bad choice I’ve ever made with men in my life, want the same thing in the end.
We want the jury to love us.
We have both been looking for love as we have grinded our way out of the morning and through the lunch recess and into the afternoon. Both Katherine and I have already gone through a handful of peremptory challenges when unable to agree on a candidate, for a whole laundry list of reasons.
I stand now, wearily, and begin questioning a woman from Westbury who runs her own small public relations firm in that town. She appears to be in her late thirties or perhaps early forties, well dressed, smart. Her answers to basic questions have been fine and occasionally ironic, first with Katherine Welsh, now with me.
