Summary
Dozens of Klansmen pour in from out of state and march on the Clanton courthouse. They incite violence as they march, shouting racist comments and slurs at onlookers. The leader of the march, Stump Sisson, is outraged by the way the Klan is vastly outnumbered by anti-Klan protesters. His shouting is drowned out by chants to "Free Carl Lee!" As Sisson is in the process of insulting Sheriff Ozzie Walls, someone on the third floor of the courthouse throws a crudely made firebomb at Stump's feet, causing his robes to go up in flames. After the bomb is thrown, chaos breaks out. The Black onlookers rush in on the Klan, and a brawl ensues. Sheriff Walls is clobbered in the head, and several protesters on both sides and a handful of the news media are seriously injured. The brawling simmers down after a few deputies fire shots into the air. Sisson sees his own injuries as a rallying point for the rest of the Klansmen.
Carla calls Jake in a panic from Wilmington. She wants to return to Clanton; she's afraid for his safety and feels helpless at her parents' house, 700+ miles away. He tells her it's imperative that she stay put; he's heavily guarded and spends most nights at Lucien's house anyways. The news reports that the trial may be postponed and/or moved from Ford County after the violence in front of the courthouse, but Jake doubts this will actually happen. The night after the brawls, twenty prospective jury members have burning crosses planted in their yards as a threat from the Klan.
The same day that the Klan burns crosses in twenty of the potential jurors' front yards, Jake drives up to Smithfield, an hour away from Clanton, to speak to Judge Noose who is presiding over a case in that town. Brigance tells Noose about the jury intimidation, and Noose acts shocked. He agrees to remove those twenty jurors from the pool, but refuses to budge on Jake's motion to move the venue of the trial. Jake is both surprised and unsurprised; Harry Rex's tip that Judge Noose is being manipulated by Buckley seems, based on his behavior, to be true. He won't move the venue out of fear of being blocked in the next election. Jake returns to Clanton to talk strategy with the mayor and Ozzie Walls. Walls asks the mayor to call in the National Guard, and the mayor is shocked at the severity of the request. Jake fully supports it, because he thinks the presence of the National Guard in Clanton will make it easy to appeal for a change of venue if Carl Lee is convicted.
Meanwhile, at the office, Ellen is the best law clerk Jake could have hoped for. Her briefs are concise works of art. He asks her to do some research on the state psychiatrist because he plans to cross-examine him about previous cases where he has testified against the insanity of defendants who were obviously insane, and the jury acquitted regardless. Then, Jake takes Ellen to a famous restaurant called The Hollywood, about an hour and a half away from Clanton. On the drive down, Jake makes jokes about how Ellen can't try to make any moves on him. It is obvious that Jake is flirting with Ellen, and she is flirting back. They have a long dinner at The Hollywood, listen to live music, and enjoy a several-course meal with plenty of alcohol to drink. They consider stopping at a motel, because Jake claims he is too drunk to drive, but there are no vacancies, so they drive back to Clanton.
Jake speaks to Carla on the phone and fills her in about the National Guard. Ethel's husband, Bud, dies in the hospital while Jake and Ellen flirt over barbecued shrimp, and Jake decides not to tell his wife about Bud, because he thinks it will further frighten her. Noose is furious about the National Guard being called into Clanton without his consultation. Overnight, the arrival of the Guard makes Clanton look like a military base. Jake and Ellen go over the juror flashcards again over frozen margaritas. Harry Rex joins them, and they turn the gathering into a little study party while the National Guard assembles in the street below.
The first day of the trial has finally arrived, and the first item on the agenda is jury selection. Before heading to the courthouse, Jake confers with his war council, which at this point consists of Ellen and Harry Rex. Dell delivers sandwiches from the diner, but Jake can't eat a bite. His stomach is in knots over the trial, and the hangover from several rounds of margaritas the previous night certainly doesn't help. The Klan assembles outside the courthouse, and they are met by a legion of National Guardsmen. Ozzie Walls tells the Klansmen that they have a right to be there, but they must stay in their designated area, or they'll be arrested.
At jury selection, the tension between Jake and Buckley is immediately evident. Jake puts forth several preliminary motions. His first is to move the trial venue. Judge Noose denies the motion again. Jake makes clear for the stenographer that the courthouse is surrounded by National Guardsmen and there are Klansmen and Black citizens picketing outside against each other. The jurors have all been exposed to this spectacle and are clearly influenced by it. He then makes another motion to scratch the current juror pool and assemble a new one. Judge Noose denies that motion as well, claiming that it would take entirely too long. As the jurors are selected, Jake steadily loses hope. The jurors are overwhelmingly white, and overwhelmingly female, two demographic attributes that Jake was hoping to keep to a minimum.
The jury selection process is fast and furious. Jake only asks the potential jurors two questions: "Do any of you believe that the insanity defense should not be used under any circumstances?” and "If we prove Carl Lee Hailey was legally insane when he shot Billy Ray Cobb and Pete Willard, is there a person on this panel who cannot find him not guilty?” (368). Given that the previous day, Buckley asked the jury three hours' worth of questions, Brigance hopes his extremely brief interrogation will endear him to the panel and show that he trusts them. The truth of the matter is that Buckley already asked most of the questions that Jake had been planning to ask.
Buckley uses his twelve strikes to strike every potential Black juror for the jury, which leaves a final jury of ten women and two men, all white. A potential ringer, Gerald Ault, is disqualified because he admits to believing that the death penalty is, under all circumstances, wrong. He's quite disappointed when Judge Noose excuses him from duty. After jury selection, Jake manages to select one reserve juror who is Black. He and Ellen cool down after the second day of the trial with more iced margaritas, and toward the end of the night, Ellen starts to give Jake an unsolicited back rub. He doesn't object, but quickly suggests that they go their separate ways for the evening.
The first day of the real trial begins, and Buckley gives an extremely long and drawn-out opening statement, ending only after an hour and a half. At first, Jake admits to himself that Buckley's performance is effective and polished; Buckley's goal is to convince the jury that he is their lawyer, the lawyer for the people of Mississippi, and that he only wants what is best for them. But after forty-five minutes, he starts experiencing diminishing returns. The jury gets bored with his repetitive points, and Judge Noose, easy to bore, is barely paying attention. Jake makes his first move to differentiate himself from Buckley. After a long recess, he gives a fourteen-minute-long opening statement. He does not mention the insanity defense. He simply makes a statement about the character of his client and the circumstances of his decision to kill Cobb and Willard.
Buckley calls his first witness to the stand—Billy Ray Cobb's mother. Buckley draws out her whole life story and then starts to ask questions about her son. Cobb's mother sobs into the microphone, eliciting some sympathy from the jury. Jake accepts the opportunity to cross-examine her. He first asks her to confirm that her son had been arrested for selling marijuana. That question is withdrawn. He then asks, “In his twenty-three years, how many other children did he rape?" (383). This sends Ms. Cobb howling out of the courtroom. Buckley's next witness is Willard's mother, and Jake does the same to her in cross-examination, after which Judge Noose convenes the two sides in his chambers to admonish Jake. Ellen maintains to Harry Rex that Jake's performance is nothing short of genius. She says, “It was a brilliant move, Harry Rex. He showed the jury, Noose, Buckley, everybody, that it’s his courtroom and he’s not afraid of a damned person in it. He drew first blood. He’s got Buckley so jumpy right now he’ll never relax. Noose respects him because he’s not intimidated by His Honor. The jurors were shocked, but he woke them up and told them in a not so subtle way that this is war. A brilliant move" (386).
The next day, Buckley calls forward Looney, who he considers a star witness. He parades Looney's amputated leg around for the jury to see. Looney answers all of his questions concisely. He saw Carl Lee kill Cobb and Willard. He heard the M-16 from the stairwell. In Looney's testimony, he emphasizes how crazed Carl Lee sounded while he was shooting the boys. Jake tries to suppress a smile. Looney's answer is even more perfect than they had practiced. When he cross-examines Looney, Looney testifies that he sees Carl Lee as a hero. Then Jake asks a clearly inadmissible question: whether Looney would convict Carl Lee. Before Noose can sustain Buckley's screaming objection, Looney declares repeatedly that he would not convict and that they should set Carl Lee free and send him back to his family.
The next morning, Ozzie and a deputy ring Jake's doorbell before sunrise. They tell him that their informant, "Mickey Mouse," gave them an explicit tip that there will be an attempt on Jake's life that day. So, they guard him extra-carefully and move in an especially tight formation. As Jake makes his way to the courthouse, a Klansman perches in a silo from a distance. He tries to find Jake's head in his sights, but he's too obscured by Guardsmen and police. The Klansman decides to take the shot anyways, figuring that at least he'll stir up some commotion. He shoots and hits a Guardsman in the throat. A few more shots ring out. Jake is rushed back into his office. The Guardsman is rushed to the hospital. The Klan flees, and the Guard sweeps the area. The incident sends Jake into a state of shock. He can barely speak for the rest of the afternoon. He starts drinking. Noose calls him and asks when he'll be arriving at court, and Jake tells him he won't be showing up today. Noose grants a recess until the following morning.
After a long day of drinking and commiserating at Jake's office, Ellen decides to drive back to Oxford, Mississippi for the evening. When she leaves, Jake is passed out on his couch. On her way home, she's pulled over by what appears to be a police cruiser. She rolls down her window and produces her driver's license, but the man at her car door is not a police officer, he's a Klansman. She's dragged out of her car, bound, and taken to a field. There, they hack her hair off with a hunting knife. She's stripped, beaten, and tied near a burning cross. Her car is torched, and the Klan leaves her in the field to die— which she would have, except that Mickey Mouse, the informant, is crouched behind a nearby bush, watching the whole scene play out. He slips out after the Klan leaves, unties Ellen, and calls the local police station to tip them off about her location.
Analysis
Throughout the novel, Grisham places a great deal of emphasis on the cultural qualities that distinguish the South from the North. These qualities are often presented by the characters themselves, in dialogue, and are more often than not an attempt at humor. But these quippy comments often point to the larger structural differences between the two regions of the U.S. Though between Brigance, Ellen, and Harry Rex, these structural differences rarely refer to racial tensions, they almost always refer to gender dynamics in the South. When Ellen asks what her role in the courtroom will be, Jake tells her she can't sit at the table with him, because "Judge Noose hates women lawyers." She replies, "So does every male lawyer in the South" (281). Jake and Harry Rex frequently objectify Ellen and talk about her body and the clothes she wears. Grisham makes Ellen's decision not to wear a bra one of the defining features of her character. On the first day of the trial, Ellen is dressed quite differently than she usually is, in a pantsuit and, Grisham is sure to tell us, a bra. Harry Rex, complimenting Ellen on the way she looks, follows his comments with, "Yes, we’re sexist pigs, but you chose to come to the South. And in the South we, as a rule, drool over well-dressed attractive females, liberated or not" (353). Ellen is, of course, "cool" with the comments and dishes out a helping of denigrating remarks that attempts to temper Jake's and Harry Rex's sexist comments, but the dynamic clearly establishes a sense of difference between gender dynamics in the South versus the North, where Ellen is from.
The emphasis on gender dynamics later serves as a way for Jake and Ellen to broach their obvious attraction to one another. On the way to their fancy dinner at The Hollywood, Ellen calls them "friends," and Jake says that in the South, "men don't have female friends. ... I don't know of a single man in the entire South who is married and has a female friend. I think it goes back to the Civil War" (335). This declaration throws their relationship into a confusing limbo. Ellen offers the clear-cut label of "friends," but Jake doesn't let it rest there. He's stuck between his desire to be with Ellen romantically, and his commitment to his wife and child. It is also an important point that Jake refers the South/North distinction back to the Civil War. The Civil War serves as the foundational event for the persistant racial tensions and cultural clashes between the South and the North, and as demonstrated by Jake (even jokingly) it can be framed as the cause for virtually any cultural difference between the regions. When Jake lashes out at the New York Times reporter weeks before the trial begins, he blames the media for widening the divide between the North and South and characterizing Southern whites as ignorant racists. The reporter says, "I didn't intend to refight Gettysburg" (110), and Jake backs off. In these small conversational instances, Grisham emphasizes the influence of the Civil War on the present-day South.
On the subject of the New York Times reporter, the theme of distrust of "Yankee" and out-of-town media pervades the novel and only intensifies as it progresses. Grisham describes how to tell a local from an out-of-towner, and especially a Yankee reporter, and will often describe the men as bearded or disheveled looking, not in the clean-cut fashion of the South. The Northerners are portrayed as timid and picky in the dining establishments, and their reporting eventually exhausts the Southern hospitality that the residents of Clanton provide at the beginning of their stay. Grisham writes, "Too many of the press hounds had betrayed their hosts and printed unkind, unflattering, and unfair words about the county and its people. It was amazing how they could arrive in packs from all over and within twenty-four hours become experts on a place they had never heard of and a people they had never met" (395). Interestingly, Grisham's narration and Brigance's attitude towards a white jury contradict the notion that the Yankee-invented Southern stereotypes are wrong. Often both Grisham and Jake Brigance will lament the large "redneck," bigoted cohort in Mississippi, but at the same time, feel like it is out of line for an outsider to level the same criticisms, suggesting a kind of proprietary right to criticize the South only for those who are from there.
