The Verdict by Dan Decker

Author:Dan Decker [Decker, Dan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grim Archer Media
Published: 2022-10-24T16:00:00+00:00

46

Even though I was in my early forties, I still felt like a young man. Perhaps it was my daily jogging and the constant critical thinking required to work my caseload.

It’s not until you have one of your classmates or, worse yet, somebody who was a year behind you in law school, sitting on the bench that you start to feel old.

The Honorable David C. Harris had been a year behind.

We had a class together. Suddenly, one day, he started putting on airs. It was after the most recent round of grades were posted, so perhaps he’d done well on finals and had decided he was one of the smarter people in the class.

I still remembered the day when he’d pronounced a word differently than I’d ever heard it before.

Everybody else in the class said it one way, and he said it another. It wasn’t until later that I heard one of our professors, somebody who’d been a former law clerk for a Supreme Court justice, use the word in the same way that it suddenly clicked.

David C. Harris was mimicking this soon-to-be retired professor who couldn’t go a single class without mentioning an experience he had while working at the United States Supreme Court.

That guy had been awful, and so was David C. Harris.

It was difficult for me to stand for a judge I didn’t respect, but there was no way out of it.

The Honorable David C. Harris looked right at me as he walked into the courtroom and took his seat. It was apparent from that one glance he remembered who I was and what I was doing here. This wasn’t much of a surprise since my name was on the paperwork with the other attorneys, but I was caught off guard by how he’d instantly zeroed in on me.

“Court is now in session. Are there any preliminary matters before we start voir dire?”

There were a few, and then jury selection began. It lasted through the morning and into the afternoon. At 3:30 PM, the jury was fully impaneled.

There wasn’t much to say about voir dire.

Keith Williams was doing an excellent job so far. There were several potential jurors we’d hoped to challenge on cause at the beginning, and he’d successfully done so, leaving him with his peremptory challenges to remove the last few we didn’t like.

In the end, I didn’t have anything bad to say about the jury. Frank looked perturbed about some of the people he’d liked who’d been tossed, so I took that as a good sign.

“I believe we have time for opening statements today, Frank,” Judge Harris said. “Maybe, if your openings aren’t too long-winded, you might even get some questions in on your first witness, so let’s get started.”

“Thank you, Your Honor,” Frank said, approaching the podium. He didn’t have a single piece of paper with him. I was surprised because he usually always took something in case he needed a reminder. In recent years, I’d gotten the feeling that Frank had been taken on by a mentor and been trying to up his game.

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