Sycamore Row - John Grisham

pot, flirting with the clerks who knew him well, gossiping with every lawyer who came
within earshot, and in general just being there. Chuck rarely missed a trial. Since he had
none of his own, he watched all the others. On this day he was wearing his darkest suit
and his wing tips fairly gleamed with fresh polish. He spoke to Jake and Harry Rex—
men who knew him all too well—and also to the out-of-town lawyers, who by then
knew that Chuck was just another fixture. Every courthouse had them.
A gentleman to Nevin’s left struck up a conversation. He said he owned a fence
company in Clanton and had once put up some chain link for Harry Rex Vonner’s
hunting dogs. He pointed and said, “That fat one over there in the bad suit. That’s Harry
Rex Vonner. Meanest divorce lawyer in the county.”
“Is he working with Jake Brigance?” Nevin asked, completely clueless.
“Looks like it.”
“Who are those other lawyers?”
“Who knows? There are so many lawyers around here these days. The square is full of
them.”
A bailiff came to life and yelled, “All rise for the court. The Chancery Court of the
Twenty-Fifth Judicial District of Mississippi, the Honorable Reuben V. Atlee presiding.”
Judge Atlee appeared from the rear and assumed the bench while the crowd jumped to
its feet.
“Please be seated,” he said. The crowd made a noisy retreat back onto the benches. He
said hello and good morning and thanked the prospective jurors for being there, as if
they had a choice. He explained that the first order of business was the selection of the
jury, twelve jurors plus two alternates, and he figured that might take most of the day.
At times things would move slowly, as they often do in court, and he asked for their
patience. A clerk had written each of their names on a small piece of paper and put
them in a plastic bin. He would pull them out at random, and that’s how the jurors
would initially be seated. Once the first fifty were in place, the rest would be excused for
the day, and maybe called back tomorrow if needed.
The courtroom had two sections, right and left of a center aisle, and each section had
ten long benches that held about ten people each. Since the courtroom was at full
capacity, Judge Atlee asked the rest of the spectators to please rise and clear out the
first four rows to his left. This took a few minutes as people shuffled and stumbled and
shoved about, uncertain where to go. Most stood along the walls. He reached into the
plastic bin, extracted a name, and called out, “Mr. Nevin Dark.”
Nevin’s heart skipped a beat, but he stood and said, “Yes sir.”
“Good morning, Mr. Dark. Would you please sit over here on the first row, far to the
left, and we’ll refer to you as Juror Number One for the time being.”
“Certainly.”
As Nevin walked down the aisle, he noticed the lawyers staring at him as if he’d just
shot someone. He took his seat on the empty front row; the lawyers continued to stare.
All of them.
Nevin Dark. White male, age fifty-three, farmer, one wife, two adult children, no
church affiliation, no civic clubs, no college degree, no criminal record. Jake rated him