Tim Wohlforth has had more than 65 short stories accepted for publication.  A 2003 Pushcart Prize Nominee, he has received a Certificate of Excellence from the Dana Literary Society.  His noir novel, No Time To Mourn, was published by Quiet Storm in 2004.

Mr. Wohlforth lives in Oakland, California and is a fulltime writer.  Visit his website at www.timwohlforth.com

Direct correspondence to Tim Wohlforth or Editor.

          The only things you can count on in this world are taxes and death the old saying goes. Not true. There is also jury duty, imposed, like taxes, by the all-powerful state. It can be deadly, and not just for the ones found guilty. Don’t get me wrong. I’m a believer in judges, juries and the whole judicial system. Flawed but better than any of the alternatives, nooses hanging from oak trees, shoot-outs at the O.K. Corral. It’s that, like so many other good and honorable pursuits in this world, I prefer that other people partake in them. When it’s unavoidable, I pay my dues. I just refuse to be happy about it.

          Those thoughts occupied my mind as I trudged off towards 601 Washington Street in Oakland, California, home of the criminal court. Housed for convenience between police headquarters and the jail, the place was like an assembly line in a sausage factory. Cops dragged suspects in at one end, the courts ground them up in the middle, the jailers stored the final product in cells at the other end.

          It was a lovely fall morning. I decided to walk the seven blocks up from Jack London Square, where I live on my boat. I carried the morning’s San Francisco Chronicle and had stuffed a paperback mystery in my pocket. I figured I’d spend the morning reading and then get excused from jury duty. I figured wrong on both counts.

          No sooner had I arrived in the Juror Assembly Room than I was gathered up with sixty others and herded into a courtroom. No old oak paneling and high ceilings for Oakland Muni, as it was known. The petty criminals who stumbled through this place rated a courtroom that could have been designed by the same guy in charge of architecture for Motel 6.

          The bailiff rose, with some difficulty, from his seat. A jolly overstuffed fellow, he looked as if he had been inflated for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. He announced that reading wouldn’t be allowed. So, I would be forced to sit for two straight days while a jury of twelve of my peers was laboriously selected.

          What to do? Recite the Rosary over and over in my head? I’m not a Catholic. Perhaps a mantra taken from an ancient Vedic text? A Sufi poem by Rumi? Nothing came to mind. And I don’t do well with nothings. That’s why I never took to meditation.

          I decided on a survival strategy. I would pay attention to the court proceedings. The challenge was to figure out, prior to the opening of the trial, what had happened late one night, some months earlier in an apartment in East Oakland. This became a mystery to solve.

          Tyrone Edwards, the defendant, wore a neat white shirt, open collar, and pressed black slacks. He sat, quiet and respectful, at a table on the left side of the courtroom. A handsome African American with broad shoulders, I guessed him to be in his late twenties.

          His lawyer, Robyn Steiner, had curly blond hair and wore a tailored striped gray pants suit, like they wear on Law And Order. Maria Martinez, an Assistant District Attorney, occupied a small table on the right side of the room. Long, straight, black hair, subdued make-up, black skirt suit, earnest brown eyes.

          Judge Ellen Dower, gray-haired, sculpted cheekbones, must have been pushing seventy. A serious woman, she was determined to educate us, the unwashed, in the ways of the judicial system. Scanning the blank expressions on the faces of the other prospective jurors as she lectured on, I felt a little sorry for her. The public really didn’t give a shit.

          The proceedings began with a reading of the charges by the Court Clerk, a matronly African American woman, whose computer screen saver featured a parade of puppies. Edwards had succeeded in potentially breaking three different laws in the course of a single evening’s activities. The DA claimed he had verbally threatened the unnamed victim, smashed up the furniture in an apartment, and physically abused her. The prosecution planned to call three witnesses, two police officers and the victim. The defense would not produce any witnesses.

          The prospective jurors could be divided roughly into two basic types – those determined to get out of jury duty no matter what and those who approached jury selection like a job interview or a test in school. Typical of the first group were people with some rather peculiar physical incapacities.

          “I have this terrible headache,” one middle-aged Asian woman said.

          “So take an asprin,” Dower responded.

          “Won’t help. It’s stress related. Caused by being on a jury.”

          “Maybe it will go away.”

          “Not possible, Judge. It’s only going to get worse. I know because I’m a nurse.”

          Dismissed.

          “My leg is becoming numb,” another lady began. “It’s the jury chair. Hits in the wrong place. Once my leg got so numb from sitting in the wrong kind of chair that I was out of work for six weeks. I still suffer from recurrences.”

          Dismissed.

          “Do you think you would make a good juror?” the Judge asked a clean-cut young man, with short hair, flared white shirt, and baggy chinos.

          “I’d be lousy at it, Your Honor. I don’t like to pass judgment on my fellow man.”

          Dismissed.

          I was getting the hang of it. All I had to do was limp up to the jury box, holding my head, muttering, “Peace be with you.”

          Asked if they had personally witnessed or experienced domestic violence, at least half of the prospective jurors answered yes. African American, Hispanic, white, Asian, it made no difference. Fathers beat mothers, parents abused children, husbands smacked wives, boyfriends bashed girlfriends, stalkers hounded those who rejected them.

          A thin, frail white woman with an abundance of shoulder-length gray hair took the stand.

          “Is there any reason why you cannot serve on this jury?” Dower asked.

          “No. Yes. I… ,” she broke into torrents of tears, “can’t … handle it. Personal.”

          Dismissed.

          So much for family values. We live in one hell of a sick world.

          I found anger smoldering deep inside me. Enough with the sermons, with the goddamned hypocrites who lecture others about morality then head home to beat upon wifey. Or who smile sympathetically when a drinking buddy explained how he “lost his cool” the other night during a fight with his wife. It’s worse when perpetrated towards a supposed loved one. Prosecute the bastards. Violence is violence.

          There were other questions. Miss Martinez, the Assistant DA, wanted to know how we would respond if a witness gave one story when originally interviewed by the police, but another in the trial. Miss Steiner asked us if we would be prejudiced against a defendant who chose not to testify in his own defense.

          A picture began to emerge in my head of the events leading up to the trial. It’s not a crime to break up your own furniture. So it was a reasonable assumption that Edwards was at the victim’s home, not his own. Edwards was charged with threatening the victim with “grievous bodily harm.” He purportedly smashed up her furniture. He was presumed to have smacked her around. Something sparked a powerful rage in Edwards, an outwardly quiet individual. A rage, so difficult to control that Steiner feared it might explode out of Edwards were he to take the stand.

          Edwards had frightened the victim to the point where she called the police. What she had told the police at the time was sufficient for them to feel they had grounds to arrest Edwards. Did she still fear Edwards? Was that why she had changed her testimony?

          I presumed Edwards to be guilty.

          For two days, however, Judge Dower explained patiently that we must presume the defendant to be innocent unless he is proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Made sense. That’s the way I would want to be treated if I were a defendant. Can’t go by “feel.” Got to go by fact. We grant great powers to the state. We allow the state, in the form of police, to bear arms against us, the citizens. We pay for the state to build prisons. We give the judicial system the authority to place people within those prisons. So the prosecutor should have to make his or her case on the basis of facts. Period.

          Yes, damn it, Tyrone Edwards deserved no less treatment. I would presume him innocent, if I were chosen as a juror. Unless Miss Martinez proved otherwise. But, I was not yet a juror. As a prospective juror, I intended to exercise my right to be judge and jury all wrapped in one. According to the court of my personal opinion, Tyrone Edwards was presumed to be guilty. I thought I had the matter resolved rather neatly in my head.

          The Court Clerk had been calling the names of jurors in some random fashion. The chaos principle. The body of prospective jurors dwindled until we were less than a dozen. Eleven of the twelve jurors had been decided upon. Then the Clerk called my name.

          “James Wolf.”

          I was fucked. The logical construction I had erected in my head crumbled with each step I took towards the jury box.

          “Can you see any reason why you cannot serve on this jury?” Dower asked. She glared at me suggesting she had finally run out of patience with lame excuses.

          “No, Your Honor.”

          I had been seized by the “determined to get on the jury” syndrome. Nobody was going to keep me off that goddamned jury. There was no fairer minded person on earth. No matter. They were running out of candidates. As long as I had one head and a tenth of a brain, I was a shoe-in.

          One last question from the judge. “Do you understand that our jurisprudence system is based on the precept that the defendant is presumed innocent?”
“Oh, yes. The very foundation of our republic.”

          Those words would return to haunt me. I meant them at the time. The only problem was I knew the bastard to be guilty.

* * *

          “Officer Owens and I entered…,” Officer Joseph Lombardi hesitated and looked down at his notes, “Apartment 2b at 4008 MacArthur Boulevard, near the corner of 38th Avenue on Saturday, August 25th, at 2:34 AM. We were responding to a call for assistance from a Brione Jones.” Lombardi had the kind of tough good looks that could have gotten him a minor role in a noir movie.

          “What was the nature of the problem requiring your assistance?” Martinez asked.

          “The dispatcher reported it was a domestic disturbance.”

          “No further details?”

          “She said Jones had reported…”

          “Objection.” It was Steiner, the defense attorney. “Hearsay.”

          “Sustained.”

          “Describe in your own words what you saw when you entered the apartment.”

          “The place was a complete mess. Broken chairs, smashed dishes scattered around, a woman’s clothes and undergarments torn to shreds. Miss Jones opened the door for us. She had a black eye, bruises on her arms and legs, blood streaming from a cut on her forehead, nightgown ripped.”

          “Did you see the defendant, Tyrone Edwards, in the apartment?”

          “Yes. He was sitting on the sofa.”

          “What did Miss Jones say to you?”

          “She said Edwards had been out drinking. He came home around midnight. She had gone to bed early as she had two housecleaning jobs on Saturday. He dragged her out of bed and started beating her.”

          “Did he give her any reason for the attack?”

          “She said that he claimed she had ‘dissed’ him.”

          “Didn’t respect him?” Judge Dower asked.

          “Yes.”

          “Please continue,” Martinez said. “Tell us exactly what Miss Jones said to you.”

          “The victim reported Mr. Edwards had smashed up her furniture. He threw the dishes around. He grabbed a leg from a chair and beat her with it. He retreated into the bedroom and returned with her clothing. He ripped these up and scattered them around the room. Then he picked her up, flung her down on the floor, and shouted, ‘I’m going to kill you.’”

          Martinez turned to Steiner and said, “Your witness.”

          “What did Mr. Edwards say in your presence that evening?”

          “Nothing.”

          “Not a word?”

          “No.”

          “Did he appear calm or agitated?”

          “Calm.”

          “No further questions.”

          Officer Owens, a thin athletic African American with a shaved head in his late twenties, repeated, almost word for word, what Lombardi had said.

          Brione Jones took the stand. A tiny, pencil-thin, twenties-something woman, Jones looked like a teenager. She had very dark skin, straight short black hair and the kind of face that could sparkle given the right circumstances. This day she just looked shell-shocked. She wore a black pleated skirt and white blouse. A large gold cross hung around her neck.

          I concentrated on her dolorous eyes. Her gaze never left Edwards as she testified. Adoring, genuflecting, filled with fear. I sensed she was begging Edwards for forgiveness. But for what? He was the one who had brutalized her.

          “Your honor,” Martinez said, approaching the bench, “I ask permission to treat Miss Jones as a hostile witness. She has changed her story from the one she originally told the officers the night of August 25th.”

          “So granted.”

          “Tell us in your own words what happened.”

          “Tyrone came home that night upset. You see he be havin’ trouble findin’ a job. So ashamed. He started tossin’ things around, breakin’ up furniture. I got mad and called the cops.”

          “So you admit he broke up your furniture.”“So you admit he broke up your furniture.”

          “Yes, ma’am. But I don’t mind. Be my furniture. I don’t want to press charges.”

          “Did he threaten to kill you?”

          “Don’t remember nothin’ like that.”

          “Did he beat on you?”

          “Tyrone loves me.”

          Her soft voice sounded more like a plea than a statement of fact.

          “How did you receive the injuries the officers observed?”

          “Maybe I stumbled on somethin’. Place was a mess.”

          “Did you stumble?”

          “Could be.”

          “Yes or no?”

          “Ye…es.” “Do you deny telling the officers that Mr. Edwards threatened to kill you and that he beat you?”

          “No, ma’am. I said those things then. ‘Cause I was mad. But they weren’t the truth. Tyrone loves me. He wouldn’t act like that.”

          I watched Edwards while she was testifying. His stone face softened. The corners of his mouth turned slightly upwards and the muscles in his neck relaxed. Was he pleased with the control he had over her?

          The defense had no questions and called no witnesses. Steiner saved everything for her summary. And a persuasive one it was. There was only one witness to the events that had occurred on the night of the 25th, Brione Jones. She made two contradictory statements. The first, she claimed, in a fit of anger. The second after she had time to cool down and reflect. Even if someone was inclined to believe the first statement, wasn’t her second statement sufficient to raise a reasonable doubt?

          We, the jury, took less than an hour to arrive at a verdict – not guilty. I voted with the others. We had acted properly according to the law of the land. But, the bastard was guilty.

          I left the court shattered. I had bonded with Brione. I wasn’t sure why, but the emotion was overpowering. Maybe it was my own past. I was born to a poor single woman who, outside of color, could have been Brione. She didn’t have the means to raise me, so she gave me up for adoption. I never tried to find her. Yet she was part of me and I was part of her. Was my birth mother abused like Brione? I didn’t know. As a two year old child there wasn’t much I could do for my young mother. As a middle aged private investigator there should have been something I could have done for Brione. Instead I had betrayed her.

* * *

          A week later I sat on a barstool in my favorite hangout, Big Emma’s, on Jack London Square. I was surrounded by paintings of Nineteenth Century nudes who had never heard of Weight Watchers. My eyes, however, were on the svelte figure of Lori Mazzetti, the joint’s owner and my best friend. Platinum blond hair held up in a ponytail, blue eyes peering intently into mine. I attempted to explain to her why my jury experience had been such a downer.

          As I sipped my Oban single malt neat, I noticed a familiar figure on the television screen behind Lori.

          “There he is,” I shouted. “Turn up the TV.”

          She did as I requested.

          “Tyrone Edwards,” the unseen announcer droned, “has just been arrested in connection with the brutal killing of Brione Jones. The young woman was bludgeoned to death with a leg broken off of a dining room table.”

          Brione Jones’ words, “Tyrone loves me,” echoed through my head. Justice, we are told, should be blind. Love, when it is blind, can kill. Certainly we, the jury, who sat in judgment of Tyrone Edwards were blind. Deadly blind.

          The TV cameraman segued into a headshot of Robyn Steiner, who stood beside him. “No comment at this time,” she said, “other than to note that under our justice system the accused is presumed to be innocent unless a jury determines otherwise.”

          “Shit.”

          “Not your fault,” Lori said. “You had to vote the way you did. It’s the law.”

          “But it’s not my law.”

          “What do you mean?”

          “We, the jury, did right by the law. But we didn’t do right by Brione Jones. I was part of the decision that let that killer loose. I’ve got to justify my actions to me.”

* * *

          I pulled my black Taurus in front of the pink stucco façade of the Mexicali Rose Restaurant, across from the courthouse. I had no desire to return to what I had believed was the scene of my crime. My act in letting a killer loose on the streets of Oakland. But I had a call from Sandra Jacobs, an attorney I sometimes worked for. I was to meet her at the restaurant to go over a job.

          I noticed a crowd filing out from 601 Washington Street. Tyrone Edwards and Robyn Steiner emerged from the building surrounded by reporters. The arraignment must be over and they had let the murderer out on bail. I swung open the door of my car and dashed across the street. I heard brakes screech as an Oakland patrol car swerved to miss me. I didn’t care. Had to get the killer. He was my responsibility.

          I raged on, like a wounded wild boar, and plunged directly into Edwards, knocking him to the ground. I flung myself upon him and grasped him by the throat. I squeezed with all my strength. I felt my fingernails dig into Tyrone’s skin. All I could see was the dolorous eyes of Brione. So defenseless in her blinding love. I pressed harder, harder. I heard Edwards gasp for air. Then my eyes met his startled fearful eyes.

          “You killed Brione,” I said, “you bastard. “You killed the woman who loved you.

          “Let him go,” Steiner said, from somewhere above me. She was pulling on my hands. “Leave it to the courts.”

          “I left it to the courts. You know he will kill again.”

          I felt my grip relax and my hands fell from Edwards’ neck. The killing frenzy drained from my body leaving nothing in its place. I fell over beside him. What had stopped me? I sensed that this maddened killer who was strangling the life out of Tyrone Edwards could not be me, Jim Wolf. I had been seized by some kind of poltergeist. I had finally realized that my hatred of Edwards was transforming me into him. But, I wasn’t him.

          The judicial system didn’t work. But neither did blind vengeance. Sometimes there was no solution.

Copyright 2005 by Tim Wohlforth 

 Tim Wolhforth's novel No Time to Mourn is available at Amazon.com, directly from the publisher
Quiet Storm Publishing, or other online outlets as well as most bookstores.