No Way Out

Bethel was apprehensive, but no longer fearful. This woman was not her enemy. But she knew that she had to be careful what she said. It was one thing to wish for revenge, it was another to be associated with it. And yet the voice gave her a note of hope. This woman was in some way her kindred spirit — a woman who could read her thoughts, feel her pain, almost with the same heart beating inside both of them… whoever this woman was.

“Thank you,” said Bethel quietly. “Thank you,” she said again her eyes squinting against the tears that were now flowing freely.

“Be strong,” said the woman’s voice at the other end of the line, gentle yet hard. “Be strong and courageous. Justice will soon be with you.”

Saturday, 22 August 2009 — 10:20

“OK, let’s hear it,” said Alex.

They had set up the three-way video conference, with Alex sitting at his desktop computer in his home office on the main level of the house, while Andi was sitting with her laptop at the desk in her hotel room. Alex and Andi had passively logged on to the Oovoo program and David Sedaka had then invited each of them to join. All they had to do was click “Accept” and the three way conference was up and running.

“It works like this. First of all, the original jury selection program was written in such a way that it didn’t have to use it’s own database. It logs on to the databases for voting and driver’s registration in the relevant district of the State and take the names of all prospective jurors in that district from both databases. That way it’s assured of the most up-to-date voter and driver records.”

“OK,” said Alex, nodding.

“The next thing it’s supposed to do is screen out any duplicates — that is any names that appear on both the voting register and the driver’s license records. There are usually quite a lot. So far so good?”

“I’m still with you.”

“All right, the next stage is to screen out persons known to be ineligible. That means people in prison, people with felony convictions or recent misdemeanors, etc. All clear?”

“Absolutely.”

David was being brisk about it, Alex gave him credit for that. He was also being careful not to go too fast, summarizing each stage quickly and then stopping to make sure that Alex had understood.

“Okay finally when all that’s done, the algorithm picks the jurors using a randomization procedure that I told you about before to get the initial random number.”

“OK, I understand all that,” said Alex impatiently. “But how has it been tampered with?”

“Well remember I said that first it draws up the list of potential panelists living within the relevant district. Then it cuts out the duplicates from the list before going on to make the actual final selection.”

“Yes?” said Alex hesitantly.

“Well I don’t know if this is the result of tampering or just bad programming, but what actually happens in the program is that it doesn’t cut out the duplicate names from the overall list before it draws up the panel. Instead it draws up the panel first and only then cuts out the duplicates from the actual list of panelists if there are any.”

“Holy shit!” said Andi

“Well does that make a difference?” asked Alex, confused.

David was about to answer when they heard another sound from Andi, this time somewhat muffled.

“Oh hi Gene, I’ll be with you in a minute.”

“Hi Andi,” Gene’s voice came back, even more muffled.

Alex was surprised.

“I didn’t know…” he trailed off into silence.

“She came up to join me for the weekend. Instead of me going back to LA.”

“She just got there?” asked Alex, confused.

“No she came up yesterday evening. She was just went out to get breakfast while I was taking a shower.”

“Okay, well anyway,” Alex pressed on, “how does it affect the program if it cuts out the duplicates from the original list or the panel. It still cuts them doesn’t it?”

“Do you want me to explain it David?” asked Andi.

“If you want to.”

“It’s all a matter of statistics. It means that people who are on both the voting registration and the driver’s registration are more likely to be chosen. And because blacks are under-represented on the voting register — or at least were — it significantly reduces the likelihood of them being chosen for jury service.”

Alex was struggling to take it all in.

“And you think this could explain the discrepancy on the panel we had at the start of the trial?”

“That was probably a pretty severe case,” said Andi. “The discrepancies that I discovered in my research are somewhat less extreme than that. But when combined with other factors like African-Americans being excused more easily from jury service upon request, I think we have a credible explanation of the extent of the problem.”

Alex was still confused.

“I don’t understand. Are you saying that lots of factors caused the problem?”

David stepped in.

“I think that what Andi is saying — and I would agree — is that this defect with the software has made a significant contribution to the problem. There are other factors that have aggravated the problem — factors that are quite well-known in certain jurisdictions. But the problem wouldn’t be nearly so big if it wasn’t for the peculiar way that this software deals with duplicate names.”

Alex could finally permit himself to smile.

“We’re going to have to take this to the judge. We’ve finally got the proof.”

And with that, they ended the three-way conference.

“Good news?” said Martine, as she slinked into the room in a T-shirt and black lace panties, carrying a tray with some sheets of paper and two cups of coffee.

“You should know,” said Alex with a smile. “You were eavesdropping.”

“I was not!” she said with mock indignance.”

“Honey, I know you. You’re a reporter — as well as being a woman. That means you can’t help yourself.”

“Well for your information what I was actually doing was looking through these worksheets from the lab’s log-book.”

“What?” he blurted out as he snatched the papers from the tray. “That’s a privileged document, practically spilling the coffee in the process. It’s not supposed to be looked at by anyone outside the defense team — least of all a reporter.”

“I already told you. I’m not on duty.”

“You’re on duty twenty-four, seven. Like I said, I know you.”

“Then you should know that my word is my bond.” And just to twist the knife she added: “like a lawyer.”

“Like a gangster, more like,” said Alex, his tone still gruff. But he couldn’t conceal the smile on his face.

“Well in this case, I’m acting more like a paralegal for the defense, because I’ve actually discovered something that might be useful.”

Alex had been about to come back with another mock-angry response, when he was stopped by his sudden understanding of Martine’s words.

“What do you mean?”