Evidence

A buck knife, closed, rested on the round table in the jury room. Extended, it

measured twelve inches. They passed it around; they examined it.

"It's not very sharp," said a juror, fingering the blade.

"Has anyone worked with Sheetrock in here?" asked the jury foreman.

"I have. There's no way to get a clean cut with that knife. Most carpenters use some sort of a razor blade. Ya know how it's done?" he asked and answered before getting a reply." Ya score the board, then ya slam it down to get a clean break." They listened silently.

"Yeah, that makes sense," chimed the spike-haired man whose arm rested on a Stephen King novel. He held the fully opened knife at eye level which allowed his blue shirt sleeve to slide and expose a snake tattooed on his forearm. He peered into the knife's crevices and exclaimed, "I don't see no white powder in here neither." Grinning, he added, "This guy shouldn't be on trial for carrying a knife; he should be on trial for being stupid."

Everyone laughed. Someone asked loudly: "Where's the police report?"

"Here it is." A slight, tee-shirted woman in platform white sneakers handed the report to the juror on her right. She was one of the two females on the jury. "Will he have to go back to jail?" she asked.

"Let's put it this way," answered snake man. "If we find him not guilty," he

snapped the knife shut, "he's going to put this knife back in his pocket and walk out the door." His words and the click of the knife, left a faint trail of sound, like an echo in a cave. Karen clutched her backpack.

It was only two days ago that she passed through the metal detectors on her way to report to the jury room. She placed her backpack on the conveyer easily, collecting it quickly to catch the elevator as the doors were closing. The waiting room had more jurors than the number of seats. Many spilled into the entry room, some stood, others sat on turn-of-the-century window sills. They were an interesting group from bristle-bearded old men to young college students. The women were just as varied, some with scarves, some with wigs, some handsomely dressed and others seemed to have left their homes in a hurry. Their handbags could give a consignment shop a wide range of prices. Skin color measured out to the county representation of white with 25 percent minorities. Reading material is a must when called for duty, as waiting becomes the activity of the day. Karen arrived promptly at 8:30 and wasn't called until 11:30. Down cavernous halls she followed some forty jurors through a complex maze of turns into the courtroom.

The Judge assured them the trial would be brief, no more than two days. He was accurate. Karen reported for jury duty on Wednesday morning and now it was Friday. The case had been heard. The jurors were in deliberation, and this time they were allowed to speak to each other about the case. Throughout the two-day trial, they were remanded to the jury room three times, a room with many chairs surrounding an oval table packed into a space not much larger than the janitor's closet at an elementary school. All of the seats were filled. In fact, the highway construction worker sat on the cast iron radiator between the windows. There was a bathroom off to the corner that afforded no privacy. Until today, they were not permitted to discuss the case, very little was spoken. TWA Flight 800 had crashed the night before and no one mentioned it. The road repairman commented on a newspaper headline about Governor Whitman's new tax proposal to fund education in New Jersey but no one answered him. Karen asked the young woman about her sneakers. "Yes, they are comfortable," was all she could get out of her. The judge's orders were carried out: "Do not talk about anything you have heard in the courtroom or in any way connected with the trial." Jason Brown's circumstances were the only threads that held this unlikely group together. They complied with the judge's orders.

Out of the forty people who filled the courtroom on Wednesday awaiting selection, it seemed that finding twelve jurors would not be met, as many hands went up when the judge asked if there were any reasons why a juror could not serve. He called each one to the bench and after a brief chat dismissed him or her. Karen was on summer break and had no other commitments to prevent her serving, but she could hear whispers from jurors who couldn't afford the time off from work. The final twelve who were seated around this table were white.

During one of their remanded sessions, Karen read every line of the newspaper,

including advertisements. Their confinement made her wonder about sequestered jurors in murder trials; she felt claustrophobic. She was anxious to hear from the others, something, anything, about Jason and why he walked through the metal detector with the buck knife in his jeans' rear pocket on his way to see his parole officer.

As an adjunct at a local community college, she heard the most imaginative stories defending the missing assignment. Grandparents died every semester, computers crashed mostly in the spring near term paper time, and friends needed to be taken to the emergency room. After fifteen years she had developed some intuitive skills to separate the fakers from the honest students. Her antennae were up for this trial.

His defense attorney spoke confidently: "Jason had no intention of using this knife as a weapon. He simply forgot to take it out of his pocket after using it to assist his brother with cutting Sheetrock."

The sole witness was Brian Coleman, who referred to Jason as his brother.

"My mother took Jason in when he was ten," he told the court, "and she raised us together."

Jason admitted the renovation project of his home had been ongoing for two years. He leaned forward in his chair as he explained, "My mother died two years ago and she left me her house. I've been fixing it up, you know, like the porch and putting up new Sheetrock."

The Sheetrock story wasn't convincing for Karen. She wondered about the others. In the courtroom Jason's six-foot-plus frame forced his feet to extend beyond the defense table when he slouched in his seat. The first day of the trial, he wore a sleeveless black athletic shirt which accentuated his tight, brown muscular arms. His hair was close-cropped and his face was unblemished, smooth and handsome. His physical appearance had a strong resemblance to one of her students who kept coming to class late and then missing many classes. She asked to see him when he returned and listened to his heartbreaking story about his mother's flight. She left him and his two younger brothers, and his father brought in his girlfriend to live with them. A six-foot-something, strapping young man came to tears when she asked, "Can you speak with your mom?" His reply, "I don't know where she is," started his sobbing. His father dropped him off at school, and the student had no say in what time he would arrive. Karen wished she could have had a similar conversation with Jason, who

towered over his slight, freckled, pony-tailed attorney whose age suggested he may have been court appointed. The prosecutor was more Jason's match in size. The breadth of the prosecutor's chest and thickness of his neck suggested he, too, was a strong man. The prosecutor was fair, like the defense attorney, but his face didn't have the same white pastiness. Both had blue eyes.

Karen sat in seat number four located in the first row of the jury box. She was

closer than she wanted to be to the extended buck knife the prosecutor waved before the jurors faces as he delivered his summation.

"It doesn't matter what Jason's intentions were," he countered. "A convicted felon is not permitted to carry a knife."

In the jury room she held the buck knife. Its handle was mildly curved, brown

and ridged. It felt cold and heavy. Too timid to press the latch to release the blade, she passed it along quickly. She reached inside her backpack again. Looking around the room, she wondered if her fellow jurors would not feel the weight of the knife in their clothing.

"Wouldn't you know if you had this knife in your pocket?"

"Not necessarily," said the college student. "I carry this bulging wallet all the time and I don't even feel it when I sit down."

His face reddened as he continued, "I notice the difference when it's not there."

The men nodded their heads knowingly.

"That's the point," offered a tall, middle-aged man whose crisp white short-sleeved shirt was tucked neatly into his tightly creased khaki slacks, "He's so used to carrying it around, he never thought about it."

Speaking for the first time, a throaty-voiced juror asserted calmly: "We all carry things around with us that we think we need."

His blue eyes reminded Karen of the defense attorney and once again she could hear him say, "Jason had no intention of using this knife as a weapon. He simply forgot to"

"Like I said before," repeated snake man, "this guy was being stupid. You heard the parole officer," he added. "This guy came bouncing into the building, listening to his Walkman and sailed through that metal detector. He just wasn't paying attention."

The outspoken juror offered his sardonic comment with a confident grin. Karen knew he was probably right. Actually, they all made sense. Wasn't she also clinging to her backpack for comfort? It was two years ago that her doctor prescribed a medication to alleviate her bouts of anxiety. Jason's knife was merely one of the common things he carried around with him, like his comb, wallet or loose change. She repositioned her backpack on her lap.

At the outset of the trial the judge told them that Jason Brown had been

convicted of robbery. The police report, line one in a list of conviction statements, verified his words. The following three lines on the list were covered with Wite-Out, but his sentence for the conviction remained untouched: ten years. If the defense attorney did not want to prejudice the case against Jason and wanted to hide some information from them, why didn't he cover that up? Ten years for robbery didn't add up, unless it was armed robbery. His summary statement echoed within her once more: "Jason had no intention of using this knife as a weapon" She clasped her backpack as she tried to imagine Jason's world, the streets he walked, the hallway stairs he climbed, the neighbors he saw.

"This case is cut and dry," called out the sole Hispanic juror.

The sound of yeah blended in choral harmony.

"Let's vote," directed the foreman.

Their vote was unanimous the first time round, and Karen was glad she could get out of there and have time to stop at the grocery store on the way home. She was hoping that her husband would be headed home instead of stopping at the volunteer firehouse for the few beers he needed to lower the stress of his day. Her stomach churned from emptiness since she had skipped lunch. She had wandered through the local stores instead. Hackensack Courthouse was surrounded by a commercial area of small shops. Beyond that area were neighborhoods of inner city homes, many in which she would not feel safe. She wondered if all the inhabitants felt as she did. Where she lived, old-timers boasted of unlocked doors and familiar faces, mirror faces to be truthful. During lunch recess she met the court stenographer in the ladies room. Her opened handbag straddled both sinks. She was combing her tightly curled red hair, pulling it back with a clip. They spoke briefly about the threat of recorders and videos taking over her job.

"Damn it," she yelled, showing Karen a damaged red-painted

fingernail she had caught in her barrette. As she complained, Karen felt uneasy because she was speaking with someone who was involved in the case. Turning to reach for a paper towel, Karen knocked over the woman's purse spilling its contents everywhere. Apologizing repeatedly, she bent down to help her collect her things when she saw the stenographer toss a large metal whistle into her handbag. Karen wondered about her neighborhood. Had it set off the metal detector in the lobby?

The judge had given them 11/2 hours for lunch. They reassembled at

1:30, that is, everyone except the defendant. The attorneys approached the bench

several times. By 2:00 the judge, shrugging his shoulders to the jurors, decided the case should proceed without Jason.

"Yes, Your Honor," bellowed the foreman. "We've reached a verdict." The hefty, balding jury foreman gave his paper to the court bailiff. At that moment Jason rushed into the courtroom, carrying a stack of envelopes, and took his seat beside his attorney. Jason's face glistened with perspiration; it mirrored the sheen of the heavily paneled courtroom walls. The high, white ceiling offered the only contrast in the room of dark oak desks, chairs, rails and floors. Karen fidgeted in her seat clutching her backpack. She voted with the other jurors because Jason was a felon and he was carrying a knife, but the words of one of the jurors tossed round and round in her head

"We all carry things around with us that we think we need."

Maybe the jurors were right, she consoled herself; he was a jerk. He had to pass those metal detectors every week just like the stenographer. Thinking he was a jerk did not alleviate her discomfort.

The bailiff's strong voice called out the guilty verdict to the judge. He turned to the jurors with a warm smile

"Ladies and gentlemen thank you for giving us your time. You must know that you have just participated in the best justice system in the world. Thank you again," he repeated, "the service you have rendered is commendable."

The jurors filed out of the room when the construction worker turned to

Karen, ''Ya know what was in the envelopes?" he asked. "Those are his parole reports. I know, I've been there."

Karen walked to the elevator uncertain if she wanted to continue this conversation, but the juror gave her no choice.

"He's going to give them to the judge to consider before sentencing." Without excusing herself, Karen ducked into the ladies room. She rifled her bag to pull out her pills. Cupping her hand under the faucet, she washed one down. What would happen to Jason? she wondered. Is jail the answer for protecting oneself in a neighborhood? She comforted herself once more with the prosecutor's words "A convicted felon cannot carry a weapon." Karen closed her eyes but her mind brought her back to the courtroom with its paneled walls, impressive wooden bench, shiny oak floors and the white faces of everyone in the room except Jason's. Karen wanted so hard to envision her rose garden and the hammock that stretched from oak to oak where she would lazily read the Sunday papers, but that comforting image eluded her, at least until the medication could take effect.

She poked her head out the door and sighed. The hallway was quiet. She

hurried to enter an empty elevator. The doors opened onto the main floor where several security guards gathered round two metal detectors. Karen remembered putting her backpack on the conveyor that morning. She was neither stopped nor questioned.

Her pace quickened as she fled the Courthouse and never looked back. In her car, she dropped a piece of gum into her mouth and turned up the volume of her radio.

Three weeks later she tied her newspapers for recycling and never saw an article on page four. While awaiting sentencing, Jason was fatally stabbed on the front steps of his brother's home.