Eight in the Box by Raffi Yessayan Read Free Book Online Page B

or a victim because I’m a woman.”
    Nick nodded. “Sorry for making that assumption,” he said. “Listen, let me show you around. The clerk’s office and probation department are at those counters,” he said, pointing straight ahead past the metal detectors and the security checkpoint. “The courtrooms are this way.” He gestured toward the stairs.
    She walked two steps ahead of him as they made their way up the stairs. A swimmer, he figured, or a runner. Hell, she could probably finish the Boston Marathon without breaking a sweat.
    “You ever been in a courtroom or argue in front of a judge?” Nick asked as they reached the second floor.
    “No.”
    “Not even an internship?”
    “Nothing.”
    “So you really are new at this? Get ready, because you’re about to take a crash course in the criminal justice system.” It was clear he was going to have to teach her everything. Not a bad assignment at all.
    “I’ve seen courtrooms on TV. I’m not worried.”
    He laughed out loud. He knew she wouldn’t appreciate it, but he couldn’t help it. “You better be worried. It’s a lot different in a real courtroom, when you’re the one standing up there arguing in front of the judge. Let’s see if the first session is open,” he said, pointing down the hall. “I’d rather show you around before the courtroom is crowded.”
    Nick directed her down the corridor. On second thought, maybe she was too good-looking. How was he supposed to concentrate on his work?
    The door to the courtroom was locked, but he jiggled the handle and it popped open. One of the advantages to working in the same courthouse every day was that he got to know all of the little idiosyncrasies of the building. He held the door for her. They entered the courtroom with its white walls and pale woodwork, and he saw the look of surprise on her face.
    “This isn’t at all what I pictured,” she said.
    “I told you. Get that TV crap out of your head.”
    “I was expecting dark wood-paneled walls and ceilings with antique chandeliers. This place looks so modern and bright. It’s so …plain. ” She pointed toward the front of the courtroom and the two tables separated by a podium in front of the bench. “Which table is ours?” she asked.
    “The one on the right,” he said. “We are the prosecutors, you know.”
    “Right,” she said with a smile. “Thanks. You know? I like this place. I think I’ll be just fine.”
    “Don’t get too cocky. You’re still in an empty courtroom. This place will be a circus by ten o’clock. We arraigned more than eight thousand new cases in this courtroom last year. That’s almost seven hundred a month.”
    “Do you guys get a lot of jury trials?”
    Wow, she was ambitious. Her first day on the job, she hadn’t even done an arraignment and she was trying to figure out how many jury trials she was going to have. “If we’re lucky we average about two a month.”
    “That’s all?”
    “If you were at a firm you’d be lucky to get one a year.”
    “Yeah, but I’m not at a firm. I’m in a courthouse that had eight thousand arraignments last year, remember?”
    “What a wiseass.” He laughed. “Very few cases go to trial,” he explained. “Most of them plead out or get dismissed. There are times when you think a case is definitely going but something goes wrong at the last minute. Your witnesses don’t show up, the defendant defaults, the Creole interpreter doesn’t show up or you don’t have enough people to sit a full jury.”
    “You actually have days when you can’t get twelve people to show up for jury duty?”
    “ Eight, ” he said. “District courts use six-person juries with two alternates.” He gestured toward the jury box with its eight empty seats. “You could go to trial with six jurors, but if you lost one for any reason—illness or family emergency—you’d have a mistrial and have to start all over.”
    She walked toward the front of the room and stood at the