Sycamore Row - John Grisham

He’ll know which witnesses are believed, which are not believed, and which way the
jury is leaning.”
“That’s a lot. How much does he cost?”
Jake gritted his teeth and said, “Fifty thousand dollars.”
“The answer is no.”
“Sir?”
“No. I will not authorize the expenditure of that kind of money from the estate.
Sounds like a waste to me.”
“It’s pretty standard these days in big jury trials, Judge.”
“I find such a fee unconscionable. It’s the lawyer’s job to pick the jury, Jake, not some
fancy consultant’s. Back in my day, I relished the challenge of reading the minds and
body language of prospective jurors and picking just the right ones. I had a real talent
for it, Jake, if I do say so myself.”
Yes sir. Like the case of the One-Eyed Preacher.
Back in his day, some thirty years earlier, young Reuben Atlee was hired by the First
United Methodist Church of Clanton to defend it in a lawsuit brought by a Pentecostal
evangelist who was in town whipping up the devotees in the annual Fall Revival. Part
of his routine was to visit other mainstream churches in town and exorcise evil spirits on
their front steps. He and a handful of his rabid followers claimed that these older, more
sedate congregations were corrupting the Word of God and placating backsliders and
otherwise serving as havens for alleged Christians who were lukewarm at best. God had
ordered him to call out these heretics on their own turf, and so each afternoon during
Revival Week! he and his little gang huddled at the various churches for prayers and
rants. For the most part, they were ignored by the Methodists, Presbyterians, Baptists,
and Episcopalians. At the Methodist church, the evangelist, while praying at full throttle
and with his eyes fiercely closed, lost his balance and fell down eight marble steps. He
was grievously wounded and suffered brain damage. He lost his right eye. A year later
(1957) he filed suit, claiming negligence on the part of the church. He wanted $50,000.
Reuben Atlee was incensed over the lawsuit and eagerly took on the defense of the
church, and for no fee. He was a man of faith and considered it his Christian duty to
defend a legitimate house of worship from such a worthless claim. During jury selection,
he famously and arrogantly told the judge, “Give me the first twelve.”
The lawyer for the preacher wisely acceded, and the first twelve were sworn in and
seated in the jury box. The lawyer proved the church’s front steps were in bad repair
and had been neglected for years. There had been complaints, and so on. Reuben Atlee
stomped around the courtroom, full of arrogance and bluster and indignation that the
lawsuit had even been filed. After two days, the jury gave the preacher $40,000, a
record for Ford County. It was a nasty rebuke to lawyer Atlee and he was ridiculed for
years, until he got himself elected Chancellor.
Later, it was learned that five of the first twelve jurors were also Pentecostals, a