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Book review: ‘The Runaway Jury’ shows weakness of judicial system

“The Runaway Jury” is a story about corrupt activity in the judicial system, real or not. It’s about trying to purchase a verdict. The slogan on the movie poster says it all: “Trials are too important to be left to juries.”

The town of Biloxi, Miss., is the setting of this recent John Grisham book-turned-movie, in which a major tobacco company, Pynex, is brought to trial by a deceased man’s family, who holds Pynex responsible for his death. The story begins in a room full of defense lawyers with CIA-like technology.

Led by Rankin Fitch, the defense uses this technology to profile every potential juror, using unethical means to find information about each of their backgrounds. In other words, they set out to find the perfect jury — one that will ultimately decide that Pynex is not responsible for the death of a man.

Nicholas Easter is the most intriguing of the jury candidates. Fitch and his cohorts can’t find a lot of information about his background, yet they select him. As the trial goes on, Easter clearly proves to be the leader of the jury. The rest of the members listen to him because he has studied law and he appears to have a firm grasp of the trial process.

Not long into the trial, a woman named Marlee telephones Fitch and tells him, on certain days, what Easter will be wearing or carrying into the courtroom. When she is correct the first time, and all of the other times soon after, Fitch begins to wonder how Marlee is connected with Easter. Fitch soon learns that Marlee and Easter are working together and that Easter can make the verdict go either way, either to the defense or the plaintiff.

Grisham’s storytelling is as good as ever, as is his character development. Easter becomes more alive with each turn of the page and we wonder, along with Fitch, just who this Marlee character is and what connection does she have to the story. Grisham’s writing style is simple, almost basic, but the reader can’t help but keep turning page after page. We can feel the intensity, nervousness and excitement of Fitch every time he picks up the phone to speak with Marlee, who is as much, if not more, a part of the story as Easter.

Set in the mid-1990s the story raises interesting points about tobacco companies and the way they have ran their business. Most of the things that take place in the book aren’t relevant to today’s market (which is why the movie version made the switch to a trial about gun-control), but it doesn’t take away from the story one bit, and it would make anybody think twice about beginning to smoke cigarettes.

Once the reader reaches the middle chapters, the ending seems to become predictable, but Grisham throws enough twists in to keep us guessing all the way.

Grisham works suspense into a trial process like only he can.

“The Runaway Jury” is available in paperback at a local bookstore as well as most public libraries, including the library at SCC.