The Alternate (Part Three)

The Alternate (Part Three)

Copyright Wayne Baker writing as Austin Jett

14

And, just like that, Blake Allen’s fate was in our hands. The bailiff escorted us into a room that was nothing like what I imagined. I suppose that I had expected it to be hot, sweltering, with old, uncomfortable chairs. Like the room in the movie, Twelve Angry Men. I was pleasantly surprised to see our room more resembled a corporate boardroom, with hunter green carpet, elegant wooden wall paneling and wallpaper, a polished wooden tabletop, and swivel chairs.

I briefly considered volunteering to serve as jury foreman, but then thought better of it. I had my own agenda, and I didn’t need to add more to it. As it turned out, there was no shortage of volunteers, and in the end, we chose a music teacher, the fellow who looked like the Dallas Cowboys football coach. Not unexpectedly, he called for a vote before we did anything else, just, as he put it, “to see where we stand.”

Perhaps I was the only one not surprised when it tallied eleven Guilty, one Not Guilty. “Oh, for Christ’s sake!” a skinny guy with a bad combover blurted. “There’s one in every crowd!” He looked around the room, “Who is it?”

 “That would be me,” I said. “I’m not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt.” We deliberated. And voted. Deliberated again. Voted again. The results never changed.

15

Throughout the deliberations up to this point, I kept hammering on the lack of quality of the video, and how I was not convinced it was in fact Blake Allen that was shoving the clerk, Harvey Wilson. Even if it was, a threat does not kill anyone. All it shows is that someone is angry enough to say they will kill the other person.

No one bought it. “How do you explain the dog feces on his shoe?” one would say.

“Or in his car?” another would add.

“And then there’s the shoe print in the pile of dog pooh!” the petite seventy-something lady with the penetrating eyes joined in. “It was a perfect match!”

I shook my head. “It was smeared. A little, anyway. I just feel that we’re missing something.”

And so it went, for hours on end. I have to admit they had me in a corner, but I held my ground. All I had to do was wear them down. Wait for an opportunity. Then, when the time was right, I would play my ace. Toward the end of the day, the foreman sent a message to the judge. We were deadlocked.

The judge had us come back into the courtroom. We were joined by the attorneys for both sides.

The judge got right to the point. "Members of the Jury, I ask that you continue your deliberations in an effort to reach agreement upon a verdict and dispose of this case. The trial has been expensive in time, effort, financial and emotional strain to both the defense and the prosecution. If you should fail to agree upon a verdict, the case will be left open and may have to be tried again, and there is no reason to believe that the case can be tried again by either side any better or more exhaustively than it has been tried before you.”

The foreman fidgeted, cast an angry glance my way.

The judge said, “If a substantial majority of your number are in favor of a conviction, those of you who disagree should reconsider whether your doubt is a reasonable one since it appears to make no effective impression upon the minds of the others.”

A couple of my fellow jurors were staring at me. I looked at them, shook my head. No. Not going to happen.

“If, on the other hand,” the judge said, “a majority or even a lesser number of you are in favor of an acquittal, the rest of you should ask yourselves again, and most thoughtfully, whether you should accept the weight and sufficiency of evidence which fails to convince your fellow jurors beyond a reasonable doubt.

“Remember at all times that no juror is expected to give up his or her honest belief as to the significance or effect of the evidence; but, after full deliberation and consideration of the evidence in the case, it is your duty to agree upon a verdict if you can do so.

“You must also remember that if the evidence in the case fails to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, the Defendant should have your unanimous verdict of Not Guilty.”        

I nodded approvingly, showing my complete agreement with the judge’s final words to us. I pretended not to hear the heavy sighs all around me in the jury box

We were taken back into our now all-too-familiar deliberation chamber. The foreman called for another vote, no doubt in the hope that the judge’s intervention would change my way of thinking. Again, eleven to one.

The reactions were instantaneous, coming at me at once from every direction.

“For the love of God! —”

“I don’t know about you—,

“I’m losing two grand a day stuck in this—”

“—some kind of power trip—”

I have a life to get back—”

“—desperate cry for attention?”

I let them vent, get it all out. Then, it was my turn to talk. “Remember earlier, when I told you that I felt that we were missing something?” A few nodded. Some glared at me. Others showed that “thousand-yard stare” that is common among soldiers suffering combat fatigue.

I had saved my best for last. Had I said it before, they would have dismissed it. Now, they were ready to listen. “It was the dog poop,” I said.

 “What about it?” one demanded.

“That’s the proof right there!” the foreman said.

“I agree,” I said. “That is the proof!” I held up a hand. “Just hear me out.” The room went quiet. Not that anyone was really prepared to listen. I could tell by the way they were looking at their watches, at the door, the ceiling, anything but me, that they were thinking about how much longer they were going to be stuck with this lunatic. How much longer before we would be considered a hung jury and dismissed.

“Take a look again at the photograph of the dog poop on the sidewalk,” I directed them. No one moved. “I can wait as long as you can,” I said. There were exaggerated sighs, angry glares, all the things you’d expect under the circumstances. I didn’t care. I had to do this. “I am willing to concede that the defendant did in fact step in it.”

“Hallelujah!” the foreman shouted, jumping to his feet. “Let’s take one final vote and get out of here!”

I shook my head. “Not yet. I figured out what we’ve been missing.” Dull stares, silence. “Look at the direction that the shoe was pointed.” I paused a moment for effect. “It’s pointed toward the victim’s house!” I nearly choked on the word ‘victim’. That’s the last thing that Harvey Wilson was.

Skinny Combover shouted, “What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

I pressed on, “If he stepped in it on the way in, why is there no dog poop inside the victim’s house?”

You could have heard a pin drop.

“Well,” Skinny said, “that doesn’t prove anything. It only means that the defendant was in fact outside the house sometime that night.”

I said, “Here’s what I think may have happened. The defendant was probably the one doing the shoving and making the threats. I’ll concede that. He showed up that night, fully intending to kill the victim, then at the last minute, lost his nerve, or maybe he looked in the window and saw the dead body and panicked.”

“Or saw the real killer,” the seventy-something lady jumped in. I didn’t like the way she was looking at me. She reminded me of the neighbor lady who’d testified. The one person who might remember enough to send me away for a long time.

“That’s a real possibility,” I acknowledged. I knew I had them. “Then, he decides to leave. Doesn’t mean that he forgave the guy. Doesn’t mean he didn’t still intend to kill him . . .”

“Someone else beat him to it, you’re saying?” the foreman drew the conclusion for himself.

“Quite possibly. I think that is worth considering,” I nodded. “Harvey Wilson did have a lot of enemies.”

Skinny Combover even came on board, sort of, “And you think Mr. Allen stepped in the dog crap on the way in? And then changed his mind for whatever reason, and left without going inside the house?”

Uh, yeah, that’s what I said, I thought. To him, I said. “Yes sir, I do.”

“Well why couldn’t he just take off his shoes before he went into the house? You ever think of that?”

“No,” I honestly hadn’t, but it played right into my hand anyway, “but if he was that smart, wouldn’t he have not worn them in the car? And wouldn’t he have discarded them in a dumpster on the way home instead of in his own trash can?”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Skinny Combover said. “I suppose it’s possible he didn’t do it, but I’ll lay odds . . . ten to one he did it!”

 The foreman sighed, then said to Skinny Combover, “So, you admit that you do have a reasonable doubt?”  He looked around the room at each member of the jury, lastly me, and nodded. “I think we need to vote again.”