The first note arrived at 4:49 p.m.
The receipt of a note from the jury invariably produces a tense moment in the courtroom. In order to transmit their note to the judge, the jurors must use a buzzer to summon one of the court officers, a buzzer loud enough to be heard in the courtroom. And although the jurors are instructed to buzz once if they have a note and twice if they’ve reached a verdict, they’ve been known to mix up those directions, leading to untold numbers of anxiety attacks or worse. So while this time there’d been only a single buzz, it was more than enough to get Jaywalker’s butterflies moving again.
The spectator section began filling up. Family members took their places. Jeremy was brought in from the pens and seated at the defense table. Jaywalker and Darcy took their seats. Judge Wexler entered from a side door. The court reporter nodded to indicate that she was ready. The clerk walked up to the bench and handed the note to the judge. He read it twice, once silently to himself, the second time aloud.
We, the jury, request to hear again your charge concerning intent to commit murder.
Short of an acquittal, it was as good as Jaywalker could have hoped for. In his summation he’d stressed Jeremy’s explanation for having killed Victor Quinones, that in Jeremy’s mind it had been to save his life. While that testimony, if believed, was relevant on the question of justification, it also went to the even more fundamental issue of intent. If Jeremy had never intended to cause Victor’s death, that was the end of the murder charge right there.
As elated as Jaywalker felt about this development, Wexler and Darcy reacted with visible disbelief. After all, didn’t the evidence establish that Jeremy had lifted Victor’s head from the pavement at a point when Victor had been unarmed and helpless, before delivering the final shot between his eyes at point-blank range? If ever there’d been a classic example of intent to cause death, surely that was one. How could any jury be hung up on something so straightforward?
But hung up they were.
“Bring them in,” said Wexler. Not
A court officer could be heard banging on the door to the jury room and shouting, “Cease deliberations!” A few moments later the jurors filed into the courtroom and resumed their places in the jury box. Jaywalker looked hard for some clue from them. Several made eye contact with him, a good sign. Beyond that, it was hard to read them.
The butterflies did their thing.
“Mr. Foreman,” said the clerk. “Please rise.”
Mr. Craig dutifully stood.
“Will the defendant please rise.”
Jaywalker and Jeremy stood up as one.
“Mr. Foreman, has the jury reached a verdict?”
And even though Jaywalker’s brain knew that they hadn’t, his heart pounded wildly in his chest. He could only wonder at how Jeremy and his family, who were strangers to the ritual, would deal with it. Having not expected the question in the first place, they had no way of anticipating the answer.
“No,” said Mr. Craig. “We have not.”
“Thank you. You may be seated.”
He sat. So did Jaywalker and Jeremy.
Judge Wexler read the note aloud again, barely attempting to disguise his astonishment at the jury’s question. It was at times like this, Jaywalker knew, that Wexler was at his most dangerous. Grimaces didn’t show up in the transcript. Appellate judges had no way of knowing if words had been spoken declaratively or sarcastically. More than once Jaywalker had gone on the record to describe in detail how a prosecutor had rolled his eyes or how a judge had smacked his own forehead in disbelief. His efforts had gained him few friends and a couple of overnights on Rikers Island. He let it go this time. With Harold Wexler, you had to pick your battles.
The jurors appeared to listen attentively as the judge reread the portion of his charge in which he’d discussed intent. “Under the law,” he told them, “a person intends to cause the death of another person when his conscious aim or objective is to cause the death of that person.” He told them to consider the defendant’s actions and what the “natural and probable consequences” of those actions might be expected to be. Then he looked up from his notes and added, “You know, the law doesn’t impose a requirement upon the People to prove that the defendant said, ‘I’m going to kill you’ to his intended victim, or words of that sort. So you should look at his actions, not his words or lack of them.
“One other thing,” he added, his voice softening. “Jury deliberation isn’t intended to be a stress test. It’s intended to be a time when you thoughtfully review the evidence and apply the law. It’s been a long day already, and you know your needs better than I do. You know when you’re tired or when you’re hungry. If you want to go to dinner now, fine. If you want to go to the hotel now, also fine. If you want to go to dinner and then come back to deliberate further, even that can be arranged. So when the time comes, let me know, and I’ll be guided by your wishes.” Then he told them to go back to the jury room and continue their deliberations.
To a disinterested layman, the remarks might have demonstrated nothing but a gentler, more compassionate side of Harold Wexler. Jaywalker was no layman, and he was anything but disinterested. Besides, he knew the judge better than that. Fearful that the jurors were on the verge of resolving the case with a quick acquittal, Wexler was telling them to slow down, back up and settle into the fairly lengthy, predictable process that deliberations so often became. Just as his earlier suggestion to focus on the defendant’s actions had been his way of telling them to pay little or no attention to Jeremy’s words, particularly those he’d uttered from the witness stand.
Once again, vintage Wexler.
The second note arrived at 6:14 p.m.
We, the jury, would like to go to dinner. After that, we would like to come back and resume our deliberations. And several of us would like permission to have wine with dinner.
So much for a quick acquittal.
With the jurors being taken to a local establishment for dinner and a single glass of wine each, Jaywalker was forced to be rude and decline Carmen and Julie’s offer to join them at a nearby Jamaican restaurant. “They got good jerk chicken,” Carmen assured him. He hadn’t eaten a thing in a day and a half, but the thought of chicken, let alone
“So what do you think?” Jeremy asked him.
“Not bad,” Jaywalker had to admit.
It was only later, when he was down on Centre Street stretching his legs and trying to get some fresh air, that it struck him that Jeremy might not have been asking him about the sandwich. But even if he hadn’t misunderstood Jeremy’s meaning, Jaywalker would have had no good answer to the question. At times like this, early on in the deliberations, he never knew what to think.
The jurors returned from dinner just before eight o’clock and resumed their deliberations. Judge Wexler had
