Chapter 41.
41.
Jury Deliberations (n., phrase)
process during which members of a jury discuss and consider the evidence presented in a trial in order to reach a verdict
where karma’s gonna track you down
W e step into the deliberation room, and it’s as though my pounding heart has been cut into two, each half shoved into one of my ears. I’m beyond anxious for what this conversation will hold. And after what transpired in Judge Gillespy’s chambers earlier, I’m more determined than ever to ensure fairness in deliberations. But the more I stew over the testimony and what I know of Margot, the more I worry that perhaps I was wrong for my steadfast belief in her innocence.
I look around the space where we will spend the next undetermined number of hours. Days, potentially. Now that the three alternates have been removed for deliberations, it feels a bit smaller in here. Just the core twelve remain. I’ve shared the past two weeks with these people. We’ve sat together through all the testimony, listened to the same words, seen the same faces, heard the same accusations. We’ve learned intimate details about Joe Kitsch’s life that strangers shouldn’t know about someone else. Hell, Damon aside, I’ve learned more about Tamra and Cam than I know about most people in my life. And now here we are, about to discuss whether we heard it all the same.
When we’ve all sat around the table, I realize we’ve shuffled in according to juror numbers like the well-trained civil servants we are, Damon to my left and to my right, Luis, whom I’m ashamed to admit I’ve exchanged barely more than nods and hellos, which I feel particularly terrible about now that the trial is sunsetting.
There’s a buzz in the room, a heightened energy as the power in this case has officially shifted to us. In this room, our thoughts, our opinions, and our voices matter.
When everyone is seated, Xavier is the first to speak. “According to the judge’s instructions, we should begin with introductions, then decide on a foreperson.” He clears his throat. “Right, so anyone care to go first on a formal introduction?”
Everyone looks around the room, avoiding eye contact like it’s the first day of school. We’ve been together for two weeks. We’ve all conversed at this point, some more than others, and so it seems rather pointless to introduce ourselves after sitting in the same jury box for eight hours a day—over eighty hours in total, which I calculated while contemplating my poor life choices in Judge Gillespy’s chambers just a few hours ago. But Xavier seems determined, his eyes still circling the room.
“I’ll start,” he offers when the room remains silent. He stands, which seems highly unnecessary, and I wish he hadn’t been the one to start because now standing is some precedent we will all have to follow.
Still rattled by Judge Gillespy’s scolding, I realize I’ve missed my opportunity to take the lead. I wanted to be foreperson, but I fear I’ve unconsciously stepped back from pushing for the role as the doubt about Margot began creeping in. And Margot’s account of what happened when she disappeared at sixteen—her uncannily similar description to one of Joe’s film plotlines—I can’t reconcile what it means. What it should mean, if anything, for this trial. I can’t bring it up here, though, because the connection between Margot’s testimony and Joe’s film was not made on the stand and is therefore not permissible in our deliberations. Part of me is relieved this can remain my own personal case complication that I’m not required to share with the others.
Can two weeks of questionable testimony undo seven years of knowledge? Taking on the role of foreperson is still my best chance to redeem myself, refocus on my goals here, I decide.
“I’m Xavier. Thirty-six. I live in Van Nuys, though from Saginaw, Michigan, originally.” He holds up his hand as a map of Michigan and points just below the indent between thumb and forefinger in what I know to be the standard Michigander greeting. “I’m a technology consultant. Married for eleven years to my husband, Lockwood, and we have two kids, Sienna and Corbin, twelve and six. And fun fact, I played Minor League Baseball for the Cubs until I tore my rotator cuff during a spring training game in Arizona in ’07.”
Yes, definitely wish Xavier hadn’t gone first. Why did he have to throw in a fun fact? The only one I can think of is that I spend most of my time watching reality TV, but that’s highly inappropriate to share here.
The other jurors nod, smile, and share quiet hellos to acknowledge Xavier’s introduction. Most of the eyes in the room land on juror number two, as he is the person to the right of Xavier. The short, bald man—who I know to be named Amir from our brief breakfast discussion last week—clears his throat and stands, and I press my eyes shut in defeat. Had I gone second, I could have gotten away with staying seated, but now juror number two has set the tone that this is a thing. I miss his introduction entirely, and now it’s Damon’s turn.
“Hi, everyone, Damon. I’m twenty-six. I live in Glendale. I’m a transportation engineer, worked as a construction foreman before that, though please don’t vote for me for that here because I don’t think it translates.” He gets a few chuckles from the room. “I love motocross and hairless cats,” he adds before returning to his seat.
Right, it’s my turn. I stand and clear my throat. “Hi.” I wave and immediately regret the wave. How am I so bad at this (the talking about me part) when I am so confident and solid in a mediation room? “I’m Sydney. I’m also twenty-six. I live in Los Feliz. I work as a corporate mediator, so I’m basically a lawyer without the pay.” Tamra grins, but there are no chuckles like there were for Damon. And because this is feeling too much like some subverted speed dating event, I do go ahead and throw in a fun fact. “And a fun fact about me, I have a newborn sister. Genevieve. Gen, we call her Gen.” Normally I wouldn’t share baby Gen as a point of pride. In fact, though she’s technically my sister, before the trial I thought of her more as my mother’s baby than in terms of her relationship to me. But the longer I’m here, the more I long to hold her again.
Tamra aah s from across the table, and I sit back down. Damon looks at me with a twist of confusion across every feature of his face. “You didn’t tell me you have a little sister,” he whispers, and if I didn’t know better, I’d say his tone sounds accusatory.
I try to listen to the rest of the introductions. I am genuinely fascinated with the people who will determine Margot’s fate alongside me. But I’m distracted by Damon. Every time he shifts in his seat, there’s a waft of that saddle scent and it draws me back in. Why didn’t I share Gen with him? In all our notes, all our conversations, I never told him. I can’t help but think it’s because I knew it would make me feel sick, like I do now. That sharing the sister I feel little connection to, knowing he lost his, would fill me with shame.
I shake my head, sit up straight, and demand my brain recenter on what is happening in the room. I’ve missed a couple of introductions. Tamra, juror number seven, stands. “Hello, everyone, I’m Tamra. I’m in my sixties, a mother of four—three boys and a girl—and I have six beautiful grandbabies. I’m a retired schoolteacher. I taught seventh grade math, but now I mostly help my kids with the babies. Lovely to have gotten to know you all over these last few weeks,” she offers, smiling warmly.
Gray Man is juror number eight. He stands swiftly, his fingertips pressed against the top of the table as he leans forward, knees bent, and it’s an oddly aggressive stance. “Stanley,” he says, then sits back down. I’ve never heard anyone say their own name with such venom.
Pauley, a Hispanic man in his late thirties, is next, and then it is juror number ten’s turn. Cam. I immediately blush, thinking of Damon knocking quietly on his door last night. I didn’t hear their conversation, but I imagine it went something like, Cam, buddy, can you spare one more?
Dude, I could hear her begging for it through the wall. Nice work, followed by a bro hug. I want to crawl under the table, through the concrete slab of this building, and out the sewer system.
Cam stands. He somehow has his sweatshirt back on, hood up, despite the rest of us still dressed in our courtroom attire. “I’m Cam. I go to UCLA. Majoring in social sciences. Uh, fun facts, I have forty-six tattoos, and I once shattered my pelvis falling off a cliff at the Grand Canyon while trying to get the perfect selfie.” He repeats nearly verbatim what he told Tamra, Damon, and me at that first dinner.
Juror number eleven, the blond man, informs us he is thirty-six and an overnight cashier at an ampm. Juror number twelve is Kate, the young housewife from Torrance with four kids. I’ve overheard her chitchatting enough over the last two weeks to know she has listened to one too many sensationalized true crime podcasts and believes that, here, she’s part of the cast of Only Murders in the Building .
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the jury of Margot Kitsch’s peers.
“Great,” Xavier says, clapping his hands together once we’ve all gone. “Now that intros are out of the way, is there anyone who would like to be foreperson?” Before anyone can speak, he adds, “I am happy to take the role, if nobody else is interested.”
“I would,” I say, darting up from my seat. All eyes shoot to me, and I can’t miss the spattering of annoyed looks. They want to deliberate and move on with their lives, and I’m delaying it.
“Oh, well then,” Xavier says, standing to join me. When no one else expresses interest, he says, “Shall we vote on it?”
I nod, though wondering if I should insist on some kind of speech to provide my reasoning for why I want the job.
Before I can speak up, Xavier has taken charge. “Raise your hand if you would like Sydney to serve as foreperson,” he says.
Well, this is as in-your-face a popularity contest as I’ve ever been a part of. I try not to sulk as Damon’s, Cam’s, and Tamra’s hands are the only three to raise.
Xavier records the result on the legal pad before him, though there’s really no need. “And how many votes for yours truly?” he says, fingertips pressed to his chest. The remainder of the hands in the room shoot up with the exception of Stanley’s, who, to no one’s surprise, abstains.
Xavier becomes our foreperson, and rightfully so. He’s done the work I haven’t, of course. While I’ve been engrossed by Damon, he’s been getting to know the individuals who make up the jury. I never had a shot.
I plop back into my seat, adding this to my long list of recent failures.
“Now that that’s settled, the next suggestion on the instructions is to set some ground rules for discussing the case. I do have one, if you’re willing to hear me out. My daughter does cheer, and they have this thing called a spirit stick. A room full of young girls trying to agree on outfits and choreography and such, well, it can get loud. So, they have this spirit stick they use. You have to hold the spirit stick to talk. They pass it around to whoever has something to say. That way, they don’t all talk over each other and everyone has a chance to be heard. What d’you all think of implementing something like that here?”
I wonder how many of them now wish they had voted differently for foreperson.
My mom was a cheerleader in high school. There’s a picture of her in a purple-and-white uniform, sequined to the point of being, I assume, difficult to touch without getting scraped. Her cheeks and lips are a vivid, obtrusive red, and her hair is pulled back so tight her eyebrows are straight lines. She got pregnant with me shortly thereafter. That framed photo sat on the end table of my childhood home and now sits on the mantel above the fireplace in her home with Caleb and Gen. That picture has lived with her far longer than my father or I ever did. In it, she looks happy. I think of that picture now, realizing how much of her life she missed because of my father. Because of me.
I think to tell Xavier that, based on my mother’s descriptions of her team’s spirit stick, what he is describing is not at all the appropriate use. Ultimately, I let Xavier have his moment.
Tamra leans toward the fruit basket at the center of the table and pulls a banana from the pile. “We could use this?” she offers, and my annoyance wanes at Tamra’s good nature.
Xavier reaches around Stanley and takes the banana. “As good as anything else!” he says, clearly more pleased that nobody is objecting to his idea than he is about the choice of spirit stick. “Okay, so, from this point forward, if you want to express an opinion or thought on the case, please hold the banana.”
“That was a strange sentence,” Cam muses.
Forty-five minutes into deliberations, and all we’ve done is make introductions and anoint a spirit stick.
“Another idea,” Xavier says, and it’s clear Xavier has a running list of ideas he will be sharing. “Why don’t we take a preliminary vote, just to see how things are shaking out right now. Who knows, perhaps we are all already on the same page and deliberation won’t even be needed. I say kick things off with a quick show of hands vote. What do you say?”
I wiggle in my seat. Yes. Finally, we’re getting to it. I am eager to vote. I’ve been questioning for the last several days what I would do once we got to this stage. But now that we’re here, my fortitude kicks in. I will do what I came here to do. I will ensure Margot is judged fairly.
I expected an anonymous vote first—for anonymity, yes, but also for the dramatics of watching Xavier pull pieces of paper out of a bag or dish, all of us evaluating one another, attempting to determine whose vote is whose while keeping our faces neutral—like the parchment reveals on Survivor . But, alas, it makes more sense this way. We should all know where everyone stands. And if we are willing to vote a certain way, we should also be willing to share it outright.
Once again, nobody objects, and once again, Xavier is thrilled. “So, let’s just do it then.” He rubs his hands together excitedly. The anticipation in the room is palpable. It’s like we’ve been staring at the back of a bundle of cards for two weeks, making assumptions about each person’s situation. And now, we finally get to see one another’s hands. Xavier clears his throat deliberately. “Put your hand up if, right now, you believe the verdict should be innocent.”
I shoot my hand into the air. So do Tamra and two others—juror number two, Amir, and juror eleven, the ampm cashier. I take note that Xavier’s, Cam’s, and Stanley’s hands remain firmly planted in their laps.
Xavier does a quick count and records the number on his notepad. “Okay, and how many votes for guilty?”
I feel Damon willing me to look at him. I don’t. In fact, I turn away completely so I can’t see his vote. It’s not that I’m trying to be intentionally cold. I’ve been dying to know where he stands on this case. But now that the time has come, I don’t want to know. I don’t want there to be a reason to be out of sync with him. I can’t bear being on opposite sides of something so monumental again.
So, I don’t look at him. But I do watch in dejection as several of the hands in the room shoot skyward.