the juror book review

George Dawes Green

432 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

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George Dawes Green | 3.88 | 8,693 ratings and reviews

Ranked #91 in John Grisham

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The Juror by George Dawes Green

• Green, George Dawes

Warner (first), 1995

The jury is being chosen in the murder and conspiracy trial of a very bad mob boss. Juror 224, also known as Annie Laird of Pharaoh, New York, is a bit odd and not quite with it; she relies on her twelve-year-old son Oliver for a translation of the import of the trial. An employee (if that’s what he is) of the mob boss known as “the Teacher” and Vincent and Eben and Zach decides that she’s his candidate to get an acquittal. So he threatens her, lets her know that he can get Oliver any time he wants. She learns he’s bugged her home, her studio, her friends’ homes, the judge’s chambers and the jury room. He has made it clear that he owns her. And she changes, slowly and inexorably, under the pressure as he, perversely, discovers he loves her. And then the small shockwaves of their struggle initiate discrete explosions — a private eye working for Eben’s girlfriend is killed, a friend of Annie’s commits suicide. But by then Annie isn’t Juror 224 anymore, and she takes him on, this man of many names, to see in the end whether he can get Oliver before she can get him. Green, nominee for the Edgar for his first novel, The Caveman’s Valentine , shows his first effort was no fluke. Even if some elements of the plot require an immense suspension of disbelief, Green is seductive; he makes you want to go with him, to see what he’s about. In the end The Juror is that rare shocker that sticks with you, a bizarre and frightening story that is as persuasive as a bad dream and no amount of daylight or comfort or rationalizing can make it go away. ( Kathy Phillips )

Originally published in Issue # 136 – March/April 1995

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Submitting a book for review, write the editor, you are here:, the last juror.

Each February, a Grisham novel hits the stores and immediately scores a place at the top of the bestseller list. What ensures this success? Some of it has to do with predictability; some with unpredictability. Cracking the spine of a Grisham thriller, readers know they find themselves submerged in a legal battle. The characters that will be encountered and the social issues that might be addressed are unpredictable. This combined with the effects of law and the legal system on everyman --- and just plain good storytelling --- makes Grisham's books intriguing adventures. THE LAST JUROR does not disappoint at any of these levels.

Many readers think Grisham's first book was THE FIRM, but that book was not Grisham's first publication. A TIME TO KILL was his first shot at courtroom fiction. Fifteen years ago, with a press run of 5,000, a small Southern publisher published A TIME TO KILL in Grisham's home state. The book received little notoriety until the popularity of THE FIRM and Grisham's second blockbuster, THE PELICAN BRIEF. After its re-release, A TIME TO KILL reached not only the bestseller list but was also a popular movie

THE LAST JUROR is set in the fictitious town of Clanton, Mississippi, in Ford County, which readers may recall was the setting for A TIME TO KILL, Grisham's first book. The events that are the narrative of THE LAST JUROR are recounted through the eyes of Willie Traynor, a Memphis-born and eastern-educated journalist. He comes to Clanton because one of his fellow journalism students advised him that a small local newspaper was in fact a gold mine; in addition to printing newspapers, his presses would make him fast money. After a short-term internship for the Ford County Times , the paper is forced into bankruptcy. Fortunately, Willie has what every young entrepreneur needs to start a business: a wealthy relative. With $50,000 borrowed from his grandmother, Willie rescues the paper from bankruptcy and begins his career as editor, publisher and reporter for the Ford County Times .

Potential readers need not fear that Grisham has written a tale of journalists and the woes of publishing a weekly tabloid. Be assured that the Grisham formula of crime, courtrooms and attorneys is still a cornerstone of this novel. In fact, savvy Grisham readers will note that several of the attorneys who they previously met in A TIME TO KILL also are characters in this novel.

The crime that forms the foundation of THE LAST JUROR is a brutal rape and murder committed by Danny Padgitt, scion of a powerful outlaw Ford County family. Residents fear Padgitt will use his power and influence to escape punishment for his crime. The trial occupies a substantial portion of the book and reaches an ugly climax when the defendant, upon completing his testimony and leaving the witness stand, turns to the jury and announces, "You convict me and I'll get every damned one of you."

One of the jurors threatened is Miss Callie Ruffin. Willie meets Miss Callie as he is writing a local interest article about her unique family. All of Callie's children, save one, have overcome the segregated life of Mississippi in the 1960s to become college professors. Like many blacks in that era, they left the South to accomplish their goals. Traynor goes to Miss Callie's house in order to write about this remarkable woman and the rest, as they say, is fate. Miss Callie is selected to be the first African American to serve on a jury in Ford County. She is the last juror selected in the trial of Danny Padgitt.

There is something loving and stirring when John Grisham writes about his native Mississippi. His affection for his home state shows, as he describes not only the people of the South but the lifestyle they have cultivated. As Grisham describes the region during the tumultuous time frame of the Civil Rights era and the Vietnam War, he is honest enough to acknowledge both the good and bad of the region. Reading Grisham, the reader is struck by the fact that the South is not as evil as most Northerners often portray, but also not as noble as most Southerners would like to believe.

In addition to the historical ruminations about his beloved South, Grisham delivers the twisting and turning conclusion that his readers have grown to expect. THE LAST JUROR may be the best of his recent novels. Just like Miss Callie's comforting home cooking, it is pleasant to have another John Grisham novel on the reading table --- and it's as satisfying to complete this as it is to finish a fine meal of Southern cuisine.

Reviewed by Stuart Shiffman on January 22, 2011

The Last Juror by John Grisham

• Publication Date: December 14, 2004
• Genres: Fiction , Thriller
• Mass Market Paperback: 512 pages
• Publisher: Dell
• ISBN-10: 044024157X
• ISBN-13: 9780440241577

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The Last Juror

by John Grisham

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• Mis. Ala. Ga.
• 1960s & '70s

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A murderer threatens revenge against his jurors if they convict him. Nevertheless, they find him guilty and he's sentenced to life imprisonment; but nine years later he's on parole and out for vengeance.

In 1970, one of Mississippi's more colorful weekly newspapers, The Ford County Times , went bankrupt. To the surprise and dismay of many, ownership was assumed by a 23 year-old college dropout, named Willie Traynor. The future of the paper looked grim until a young mother was brutally raped and murdered by a member of the notorious Padgitt family. Willie Traynor reported all the gruesome details, and his newspaper began to prosper. The murderer, Danny Padgitt, was tried before a packed courthouse in Clanton, Mississippi. The trial came to a startling and dramatic end when the defendant threatened revenge against the jurors if they convicted him. Nevertheless, they found him guilty, and he was sentenced to life in prison. But in Mississippi in 1970, "life" didn't necessarily mean "life," and nine years later Danny Padgitt managed to get himself paroled. He returned to Ford County, and the retribution began.

Rhoda Kassellaw lived in the Beech Hill community, twelve miles north of Clanton, in a modest gray brick house on a narrow, paved country road. The flower beds along the front of the house were weedless and received daily care, and between them and the road the long wide lawn was thick and well cut. The driveway was crushed white rock. Scattered down both sides of it was a collection of scooters and balls and bikes. Her two small children were always outdoors, playing hard, sometimes stopping to watch a passing car. It was a pleasant little country house, a stone's throw from Mr. And Mrs. Deece next door. The young man who bought it was killed in a trucking accident somewhere in Texas, and, at the age of twenty-eight, Rhoda became a widow. The insurance on his life paid off the house and the car. The balance was invested to provide a modest monthly income that allowed her to remain home and dote on the children. She spent hours outside, tending her vegetable garden, ...

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Reviewed by Anne Boling for Readers' Favorite

The story begins in a courtroom where justice can be manipulated. Annie Laird has been called for jury duty in a trial against a Mafia leader. The “Teacher” is told to make sure the jury brings a not guilty verdict. He focuses on Annie. He threatens her life and that of her young son; if she does not convince the jury to vote not guilty he will kill Oliver. She seeks help from the judge only to discover he cannot offer help. The ”Teacher” forms an obsession to Annie. No matter how the trial ends, he can never let her go. Annie has no one to turn to she must solve this problem herself. This is one of the best audio books I’ve ever listened to, and I’ve listened to many. The story is read by both male and female. All audio books should be read this way. It adds depth and realism to the story. The plot of The Juror is riveting. The description of Annie is vivid. I could see her in front of me. My husband and I often listen to audio books while traveling. Too often we lose focus and have to listen to a disc more than once. Not so with The Juror. From the moment we began listening we were drawn into the story. My husband made me promise not to listen to the last disc without him.

K. Caldwell

It had been probably ten years, right around the time the book was originally published, that I had first read The Juror. At the time, it was one of the most "grown-up" books I'd ever read, and I immediately fell in love with it. I found it brilliant and would constantly refer to it as one of my all-time favorite books. Very recently the thought occurred to me that I should read it again and have The Juror prove to me that it was still worthy of being one of my "favorites" after all those years. So I began again... And it DID NOT disappoint. If possible, I love The Juror more now than I did back then, reading it with the new appreciation of a person who has lived more of her life and read many, many more books. The raw power and emotion, the thrilling pace, and the pure evil of the character still remained. The power -- that was always what drew me to this book. The raw power. I have often heard books or movies described as "psychological thrillers" and I am always disappointed that they never live up to the name and that they never live up to The Juror. This book truly parallels those words and it never disappoints. It's quick, jumping from scene to scene in sometimes less than two pages. It reads well. It's exciting; it's scary. There is a cutting humor, an intense use of language, and a story that, again, might feel like it's been done, but I assure you, it has not been done like this. The Juror, in short, is a truly brilliant book. If you've seen and enjoyed the movie, I ask you to please read the book. I had read the book first, and while I loved the movie, I of course remained partial to the book. The characters that don't appear in the movie, Slavko and Sari, were always my favorite characters, and remained so in my second read. Amazing characters, and a wonderful plot, with so many twists and turns. I knew the story in advance, and yet I still didn't see everything coming. All in all, I am very pleased to say that upon my second reading - ten years later - that The Juror doesn't only deserve a place in the list of my favorite books, but in fact, it deserves to be in the top five.

Barbara Klein

This novel doesn't pretend to be anything other than a diversion. It gives the reader exactly what he bargained for. Beyond that the book provides a deeper level of characterization than you usually find in such novels. I particularly enjoyed how attractive the author made the villain. It added an element of excitement. I also liked the way the main character faced up to the private quality of her trendy art boxes. On the other hand, I found the young boy's sexual obsession with the juror's girlfriend odd and out of place. It was kind of distateful without contributing anything to the plot. That is just a quibble however, this is a good airplane novel.

Luanne Ollivier

The Juror by George Dawes Green was originally released from The Hachette Book Group in '95, but has been re released this year. (It was also made into a movie in '96 with Demi Moore and Alec Baldwin) Annie Laird is a struggling single mother. When she is called to jury duty, she accepts, determined to do her civic duty. She is approached by a man known only as The Teacher, who insists that she 'sway' the jurors to a not guilty verdict. Her inspiration? Her son and friends will remain unscathed. Fail and...... Suddenly her civic duty has become a matter of life and death. Annie isn't quite the pushover The Teacher thought she was though.... I listened to this abridged version in audio format. It was read by Lolita Davidovich and John Heard. Davidovich's voice perfectly portrays a young innocent woman. It belies the steel that exists within Annie. John Heard's carefully modulated even tones are in direct contrast with the threats he delivers, making them all the more menacing. An excellent taut thriller, pitting two unlikely adversaries against each other. I must say as a personal preference, I do prefer unabridged audio. There is no lack of continuity with the abridged, but I always feel like I've missed something.

Adelene C. KIRBY

This is one of the best books I have ever read, and I read all the time. It keeps one riveted to the story right to the last word. I was actually trembling when I finished it, I was so engrossed. It is a wonderful, fabulous book without peer. I highly recommend it. I was delighted to see that there was a movie of this story, and I immediately ordered it from Amazon. I haven't watched it yet, but found that the casting was very close to the characters that I pictured as I read the book. You will never regret buying this book. It is fabulous, fantastic, riveting, and exciting.

Pull your head from out under the rock! Genius writing in the Juror has you on the edge from the beginning to the very pulsating end. The "Teacher" was a masterfully written role. His psychological games are completely twisted and have the reader turning page after page to read more. I couldn't put the book down!

Don't pick it up unless you're prepared to not put it down. With the first page The Juror grabs the reader, taking him on a spine-tingling suspenseful trail of tips and tricks as the artfully crafted plot thickens and excitement builds. Annie Laird, a single mother and aspiring sculptor, is Juror 224 in the case of the people vs. mob boss Louis Buffano. Innocent yet intelligent, Annie agrees to serve, in part, because she has always taught her 12-year-old son, Oliver, to be responsible. Before the trial's opening statements, Annie falls under the spell of an urbane art dealer who professes an interest in her work. On their first date she is told that she must return a not guilty verdict or else. The man threatening her is actually known as the Teacher, a brilliantly ruthless mob thug who begins to electronically follow Annie's every move and conversation. The excitement mounts as Annie tries to think of ways to protect her son and outsmart her dangerous predator. This legal thriller is top-rate entertainment, packed with superbly honed characters, especially the treacherous Teacher.

Very interestingly, the author is able to grip on to your attention with its constant change in the plot and switching between characters. I am baffled by how a twist in one's life can result in so much change. Initially, I had thought what a weakling Annie was for having succumbed to the pressure and demand of "The Teacher" but to soon realise that she is in fact stronger than I have thought. Her want to protect Oliver (her son) is a testimony of her inner strengths and courage! This is clearly shown towards the end when the author clearly depicts her emotions; which also resulted from the chains of events that had happened. I am particularly intrigued by the charms of Zach Lyde ("The Teacher" - known with several other names in the books) of his strong instincts, his wealth of knowledge. The author managed to develop this central character of the novel to an extent that makes one feel terrified, and really hoping that there's wouldn't be such a person that exists in this world who can work powerfully on the psychology of others. The light touch of the book, and yet a strong point driven across was about the greatness of motherly love - how much a child means to his/her mother and to what extend she will be there to protect the child. Such an important lesson and yet so succinctly put across by the author. A great novel for a good weekend read. You find it hard to put the book down once you start reading it.

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Director David Dobkin gave us “ Wedding Crashers ” nearly a decade ago, and we who hooted heartily at the disreputable acts abetted by the rite of holy matrimony will be forever grateful. We might even pardon any lingering counts against his twin crimes against comedy, “ Fred Claus ” and “ The Change-Up .”

Now here comes “The Judge,” an unabashedly adult drama and a steadfastly old-fashioned one. Robert Downey Jr. is jaded big-city defense attorney Hank Palmer, a specialist in getting unsavory white-collar clients off the hook.  As he puts it, “Innocent people can’t afford me.” He is pitted against Robert Duvall as Hank’s estranged dad, Joseph, an upstanding small-town magistrate who suddenly finds himself facing a possible murder rap and relunctantly ends up relying on his hotshot son as his attorney.

You can fairly smell the passion behind this project wafting off the screen. Dobkin, whose father was a lawyer, spent a number of years in pursuit of this opportunity to prove himself as adept at serious subjects as silly ones.  Studio types would look at the script and say, “But it’s not funny.” His 1998 breakout film, " Clay Pigeons ," was a dark and nasty crime comedy, as black and violent as they come. But it was still a comedy. 

Dobkin’s persistence has paid off in certain ways, mainly because it provides both its leads with an arena in which to occasionally show off their strengths. Downey gets to engage in his trademark hyper-verbal glibness but with a black sheep’s injured sadness in his eyes.  Duvall is the embodiment of grizzled authority but undercut by the grimace-inducing infirmities of old age.

Yet, there also are some less welcome elements and a certain dragginess to contend with as Dobkin overloads his plot with too many bits of business on the way to a John Grisham-lite finale. Actually, make that bits of Bit-O-Honey candy, one of the many repeated visual allusions to a past that tore these two men apart. As is often the case when an artist finally is allowed to achieve his dream,  the director adds unnecessary clutter – there is much ado about hydrangeas as well as an old Metallica T-shirt  -- as if he fears he will never get a chance to do a drama again.

Before "The Judge"’s world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival last month, Dobkin told the audience that he  always wanted to do the kind of movie that doesn’t get made anymore.  In other words, a human story. And themes found in the specific examples he cited as his inspirations -- “Kramer vs Kramer,” “ Terms of Endearment ” and “ The Verdict ” – are duly reflected in "The Judge."

Downey copes with his disintegrating marriage while attempting to get closer to his dumpling-cheeked daughter as a potential custody battle looms, just as in “ Kramer vs. Kramer .”  After his legal shark returns to the small Midwest pond of his youth for his mother’s funeral, he and a perpetually disapproving Duvall bob and weave around each other like a pair of emotionally battered heavyweights—not unlike Debra Winger and Shirley MacLaine in “Terms of Endearment.” And there are plenty of “Verdict”-style legal entanglements as Hank  is forced to represent his father while shaking out the potentially unpleasant truth behind a car accident that is considered a possible vehicular homicide.

Meanwhile, a chorus line of family skeletons shake and rattle at regular intervals, some involving middle-child Hank’s brothers.  And if anything is emblematic of the strengths and weaknesses of The Judge, it is these two siblings. As eldest son, Glen, Vincent D’Onofrio carries the burden of regret and responsibility on his beefy shoulders as a former baseball prodigy whose sports career hopes were dashed by an injury. As an unexpected MVP, D’Onofrio solemnly provides the perfect surefooted counterweight between the clash of the titans escalating between Downey and Duvall.

Then there is slow-witted youngest son Dale, played by Jeremy Strong .  His innocent questions often provide obtuse humor even if his near-childlike state goes unexplained. But too often  Dale ends up being more of a device than a fully fleshed-out  character as he shows new and old home movies shot on an vintage Super 8MM camera as a way of  filling in the back story that haunts the Palmer clan. 

Vera Farmiga , whose local diner owner was cruelly dumped by Hank when they were in high school, seems almost part of a different movie. One by Frank Capra . She primarily exists to provide a sympathetic ear for Downey and some undercooked romantic relief. In fact, a whole parade of colorful performers passes by, including Billy Bob Thornton as a slim and steely silver fox of a prosecutor who battles Hank; Ken Howard as the no-nonsense walrus-like judge presiding over Papa Palmer’s case; and Dax Shepard as an unseasoned rube litigator. 

Ultimately, it is the core father-son relationship that is put on trial, and you have to wait until the end before Dobkin unclenches his need to control and just allows Downey and Duvall to fearlessly go at it together at full force.

Still, for almost every choice that rankles – using a raging tornado as a metaphor for the storm inside the Palmer homestead is so obvious, it hurts – there usually is something else that offers compensation. Probably my favorite scene, one that shows Dobkin still has it funny-wise: When Hank, looking to cherry-pick less than salt-of-the-earth types as potential jury members, decides to ask the candidates to reveal the bumper-sticker sayings on their cars. A woman with the word “Tolerance” spelled out with religious symbols gets a thumbs down. The guy whose saying is, “Wife and Dog Missing. Reward for Dog”? He gets a thumbs up. Way up.  

Susan Wloszczyna

Susan Wloszczyna spent much of her nearly thirty years at USA TODAY as a senior entertainment reporter. Now unchained from the grind of daily journalism, she is ready to view the world of movies with fresh eyes.

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THE 13TH JUROR

by John T. Lescroart ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 20, 1994

Appearing as defense counsel for Jennifer Witt in the sentencing phase of her trial for killing her husband and son, San Francisco attorney Dismas Hardy finds himself inching slowly, slowly from the back bench into the hot seat. Both Diz and David Freeman, his colleague, mentor, and landlord, who's defending Jennifer, know she's not the ideal client. She alternately postures and freezes up; she says nothing about a $300,000 bank account she'd kept hidden from her husband; when she's deined bail, she escapes from prison and holes up in Costa Rica for three months; and she refuses to let David submit evidence that she was a battered wife and abused daughter—even though the prosecutor, who's running for California attorney general, plans to paint her as an insurance-money killer who also shot her seven-year-old son, Matt, when he got in the way. To top it off, the prosecutor announces new evidence that Jennifer killed her first husband nine years ago for his insurance. During the trial to determine Jennifer's guilt or innocence, the balance of power seesaws between the prosecution and the defense, but, inevitably, Jennifer's found guilty. Then, during the penalty phase, Diz is left alone at the defense table, praying that one of his unlikely leads—the slim hope of persuading Jennifer's mother or psychiatrist to testify about the abuse she denies; or a possible scam linking Larry Witt's death to another murder—will turn into a defense he can smuggle into the penalty hearings over the judge's frigid warnings. Diz's defense is so hamstrung by his own client that after a slow start and painstaking, but uninspired, courtroom scenes, his case builds a ton of pressure as it goes down to the wire—though it never becomes the barn-burning equal of Diz's last, Hard Evidence (1993). (First printing of 60,000; Literary Guild featured selection)

Pub Date: Sept. 20, 1994

ISBN: 1-55611-402-8

Page Count: 496

Publisher: Donald Fine

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1994

MYSTERY & DETECTIVE

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BOOK REVIEW

by John T. Lescroart

A CONSPIRACY OF BONES

by Kathy Reichs ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 17, 2020

Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.

Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.

A week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice ( The Bone Collection , 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.’s splenetic outbursts. Before he died, it seems, Felix Vodyanov was linked to a passenger ferry that sank in 1994, an even earlier U.S. government project to research biological agents that could control human behavior, the hinky spiritual retreat Sparkling Waters, the dark web site DeepUnder, and the disappearances of at least four schoolchildren, two of whom have also turned up dead. And why on earth was Vodyanov carrying Tempe’s own contact information? The mounting evidence of ever more and ever worse skulduggery will pull Tempe deeper and deeper down what even she sees as a rabbit hole before she confronts a ringleader implicated in “Drugs. Fraud. Breaking and entering. Arson. Kidnapping. How does attempted murder sound?”

Pub Date: March 17, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-9821-3888-2

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Scribner

Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020

GENERAL MYSTERY & DETECTIVE | GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE | MYSTERY & DETECTIVE | SUSPENSE | THRILLER | DETECTIVES & PRIVATE INVESTIGATORS | SUSPENSE | GENERAL & DOMESTIC THRILLER

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by Kathy Reichs

by C.J. Box ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 28, 2015

A suspenseful, professional-grade north country procedural whose heroine, a deft mix of compassion and attitude, would be...

Box takes another break from his highly successful Joe Pickett series ( Stone Cold , 2014, etc.) for a stand-alone about a police detective, a developmentally delayed boy, and a package everyone in North Dakota wants to grab.

Cassandra Dewell can’t leave Montana’s Lewis and Clark County fast enough for her new job as chief investigator for Jon Kirkbride, sheriff of Bakken County. She leaves behind no memories worth keeping: her husband is dead, her boss has made no bones about disliking her, and she’s looking forward to new responsibilities and the higher salary underwritten by North Dakota’s sudden oil boom. But Bakken County has its own issues. For one thing, it’s cold—a whole lot colder than the coldest weather Cassie’s ever imagined. For another, the job she turns out to have been hired for—leading an investigation her new boss doesn’t feel he can entrust to his own force—makes her queasy. The biggest problem, though, is one she doesn’t know about until it slaps her in the face. A fatal car accident that was anything but accidental has jarred loose a stash of methamphetamines and cash that’s become the center of a battle between the Sons of Freedom, Bakken County’s traditional drug sellers, and MS-13, the Salvadorian upstarts who are muscling in on their territory. It’s a setup that leaves scant room for law enforcement officers or for Kyle Westergaard, the 12-year-old paperboy damaged since birth by fetal alcohol syndrome, who’s walked away from the wreck with a prize all too many people would kill for.

Pub Date: July 28, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-312-58321-7

Page Count: 272

Publisher: Minotaur

Review Posted Online: April 21, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2015

GENERAL MYSTERY & DETECTIVE | MYSTERY & DETECTIVE

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by C.J. Box

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Judge reviews HASD dispute

District, union argue over ’22 suspension related to controversial ‘gender queer’ book.

HOLLIDAYSBURG — A Blair County judge is weighing arguments in a Hollidaysburg Area School District dispute over a graphic novel and the related 10-day suspension of a junior high school teacher.

Judge David B. Consiglio heard Thursday from attorneys representing the school district and the Hollidaysburg Area Education Association that have been at odds since the fall of 2022 when English teacher Nicole Stouffer took a copy of “Gender Queer” into her classroom while she was involved in her own study of banned books.

While both sides seemed to agree that Stouffer never shared the book with students, the district advised Stouffer in a

Dec. 9, 2022, letter that she was being suspended for 10 days. The letter accused her of showing poor professional judgment by taking the book to school and allowing it to be on her desk in full sight of students.

After the teacher’s union challenged the district’s action, a hearing was convened Sept. 8, 2023, before arbitrator Gregory Gleason. In January, Gleason ruled that based on the union’s negotiated contract, the district wasn’t in a position to hand down a 10-day suspension to a teacher with no prior discipline history.

Attorney Amy Marshall, on behalf of the education association, asked Consiglio in court and in a legal brief to affirm the arbitrator’s ruling. She chastised the district for describing the arbitrator’s conclusions as irrational and emphasized that the arbitrator thoroughly examined the district’s actions and concluded that it didn’t have just cause to issue the 10-day suspension.

School district attorney Jennifer L. Dambeck, in court and in a legal brief seeking to have the arbitrator’s ruling overturned, pointed to then-Superintendent Robert Gildea’s Dec. 9, 2022, letter to Stouffer informing her of the 10-day suspension.

In that letter, Gildea referenced a conversation with Stouffer on Aug. 29, 2022, when he told her to stop asking students to identify their preferred pronouns.

The superintendent also stated that on Oct. 25, 2022, the administration learned that she had had a graphic novel in her classroom.

Dambeck maintains that the arbitrator overlooked the body of the Dec. 9, 2022, letter.

“The grievant’s discipline was about extreme lack of professional and prudent judgment by bringing in a sexually graphic novel and leaving it on her desk for 15 school days,” Dambeck said.

In court Thursday, Marshall countered that the teacher never showed the book to anybody.

When Consiglio mentioned that it was on the teacher’s desk, Marshall pointed out that Stouffer’s desk was at the rear of the classroom so students weren’t passing by when they entered.

In its appeal, the district also took the position that if the arbitrator’s ruling is allowed to stand, then there is a substantial risk that other students will be subjected to similar actions in the future. Marshall disagreed in addressing that position and pointed out that despite the arbitration ruling, the district still retains policy-making authority over conduct and activities within the district.

In Consiglio’s examination of the debate, it is anticipated that the judge could reference a 1999 state Supreme Court ruling and a 2017 state Commonwealth Court ruling addressing arbitration disputes.

In the 1999 case, the court concluded that the arbitrator’s award will be upheld if the interpretation can rationally be derived from the collective bargaining agreement.

“That is to say, a court will only vacate an arbitrator’s award where the award indisputably and genuinely is without foundation in, or fails to logically flow from, the collective bargaining agreement,” the Supreme Court concluded.

In the 2017 case, the Commonwealth Court recognized an arbitrator’s findings of fact as binding and that reviewing courts were not to undertake any independent factual analysis.

Mirror Staff Writer Kay

Stephens is at 814-946-7456.

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This Judge Is Blind. He Wishes Our Justice System Were, Too.

In a new memoir, David S. Tatel recounts a remarkable career as a civil rights lawyer and federal judge, and the challenges of contending with the disease that took his vision.

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By Julie Stone Peters

Julie Stone Peters is a professor of literature at Columbia and affiliated faculty member of Columbia Law School. She is the author of “Law as Performance” and the forthcoming “Staging Witchcraft Before the Law.”

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VISION: A Memoir of Blindness and Justice, by David S. Tatel

On the evening of July 13, 2020, Judge David S. Tatel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit — the country’s second most powerful court — was exchanging frantic messages with colleagues.

That afternoon, Indiana prison officials had planned to inject Daniel Lewis Lee, a convicted murderer, with a massive dose of pentobarbital. But Lee’s lawyers, arguing that the drug could cause his lungs to fill with fluid and make him feel as if he were drowning, had persuaded a lower court to suspend the execution on the grounds that it might violate the Constitution’s prohibition on “cruel and unusual punishments.”

Eager to see the execution proceed, President Donald Trump’s Justice Department had appealed to the D.C. Circuit. As with all his rulings, Judge Tatel was ready to issue his decision without having laid eyes on the lower court opinion, briefs or other relevant documents. This is because he is blind.

Tatel, now 82 and recently retired, has had a remarkable career : as a civil rights lawyer, champion of equal opportunity and federal judge. He succeeded Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the D.C. Circuit and would probably be on the Supreme Court today were it not for Bush v. Gore, which handed the presidency to George W. Bush (giving us Justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito instead).

For decades before he joined the bench, Tatel fought for school integration, legal aid for the poor, Title IX, the environment, voting rights and more. For most of his career, he did so without the modern audio devices the visually impaired use today. Instead, he relied on primitive gadgets like a “Braille ’n Speak” computer, human readers and a prodigious memory.

Tatel was not always blind. As he recounts in his extraordinary memoir, “Vision,” he remembers the “Whites Only” signs in the shops near his childhood home in suburban D.C.; his high school’s basement shooting range (rifles, ammo and targets courtesy of the U.S. Army); the stars he could almost see through his father’s telescope. In 1954 — the year of Brown v. Board of Education, the addition of “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance and his bar mitzvah preparations — a ball he couldn’t see hit him in the face. The doctors advised him to eat more carrots. Eventually, one diagnosed retinitis pigmentosa, which causes gradual vision loss.

Ashamed of his dimming vision, Tatel devised secret workarounds. He drove at night guided by headlights and taillights. He surreptitiously brushed elbows with friends as he crossed streets. He wrote with thick black pens, until he could no longer see his notes.

“Vision” is at once a legal history of the last half-century and a story of blindness and enlightenment. In the 1960s, along with marches and sit-ins and the Voting Rights Act, there are girls-only university curfews and men-only commuter flights (cigars and stewardesses included). It’s a world mostly without ramps or audible “walk” signals. Tatel notices only in retrospect the immense invisible labor of his wife, Edie, who manages the household and family while working toward her own academic career. And he learns only belatedly not to be ashamed of his blindness.

While he grows more enlightened, American justice doesn’t. In Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Louis, Tatel proves that officials deliberately strove to circumvent Brown and preserve segregation. (One school district boasts that by remaking the district’s boundaries it can “take all the colored out.”) In North Carolina, he exposes the discriminatory state funding that has starved historically Black colleges and universities, leaving them with decrepit buildings, broken typewriters and worn-out books. He wins case after case. Yet nearly everywhere, segregation and gross inequality persist.

Tatel insists that he is “no radical.” As both a judge and a writer, he’s committed to restraint. He believes that judges should avoid letting their political views seep into their opinions. He aims at “crisp, clear and jargon-free” writing and dislikes audiobooks narrated with “excessive drama.” In a world of political rage, explosive social media posts and competitive victimhood, Tatel’s unfailing affability can feel quaint. And after more than 300 pages of unaffected prose, however jauntily wry, I might have welcomed a bit of excessive drama — perhaps a Miltonic meditation on blindness and justice, or a hint of the soul’s abyss? On the other hand, the rigorous dispassion of his opinions has been key to his success in defending the democratic ideals that we are now in danger of losing.

The night Tatel and two colleagues on the D.C. Circuit issued their decision on Lee’s execution — unanimously upholding the lower court’s stay and rejecting the Justice Department’s appeal to proceed — the Supreme Court stepped in. Barely mentioning the question of the constitutionality of death by pentobarbital, the 5-4 conservative majority urged speed . Less than six hours later, Lee was dead.

Such episodes give Tatel’s title a bittersweet resonance. His book is at once a memoir of his vision of equality under the law and a memorial for it — a judgment on a judicial system that has grown blind to its betrayal of the law.

VISION : A Memoir of Blindness and Justice | By David S. Tatel | Little, Brown | 343 pp. | $32

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Judge David Tatel on the Roberts Court, the Voting Rights Act, and the Notorious RBG

In a forthcoming book. retired judge david tatel offers candid thoughts and spills the tea..

Jonathan H. Adler | 5.29.2024 9:54 AM

CNN's Joan Biskupic offers a preview of some of what's contained in retired Judge David Tatel's forthcoming book,  Vision: A Memoir of Blindness and Justice . Judge Tatel was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit by President Bill Clinton, and was a highly regarded member of that court for nearly three decades. Had Al Gore been elected President in 2000, some believe he would have nominated Judge Tatel to the Supreme Court if given the opportunity.

According to Biskupic, Tatel echoes the common (and incorrect) complaint that the Roberts Court has been less respectful of precedent than prior courts. She reports that Tatel charges that the Roberts Court "has 'kicked precedent to the curb' and become 'a tragedy' for civil rights and the rule of law." Assuming that Biskupic's report is accurate (as the book has not yet been released) it is a shame to see Judge Tatel repeat this claim about the Roberts Court and precedent because, as I have shown , the Roberts Court has actually been less prone to overturn precedent than prior courts.  It is one thing to criticize the substance of the Roberts Court's decisions. It is quite different to make demonstrably false claims about the nature of the Court's decisions.

Biskupic's story also confirms what many have long suspected about the Supreme Court's decision in  NAMUDNO v. Holder , concerning the Voting Rights Act.

In his book, Tatel wrote that Ginsburg told him about the behind-the-scenes dealings in a 2009 case, known as  Northwest Austin v. Holder , that was the forerunner to Shelby County. The  2009 case  left the VRA's Section 5 intact, although its reasoning laid the groundwork for future obliteration. (Tatel had authored the lower court opinions in both Northwest Austin and Shelby County .) When the Supreme Court ruled in 2009, Tatel said, "What I couldn't figure out was why the four liberal justices had joined the Chief's majority opinion. … (T)he unnecessary and irrelevant jabs at Section 5's constitutionality? Why had they gone along with that part of the Chief 's opinion? I suspected I knew the answer, and Justice Ginsburg herself later confirmed my suspicions." "The justices had initially voted 5–4 to declare Section 5 unconstitutional, but they later worked out a compromise: The majority agreed to sidestep the big question about Section 5's constitutionality, and the would-be dissenters agreed … to sign on to the critique of Section 5," the judge wrote. "With that compromise, the liberal justices had bought Congress time to salvage the keystone of the Civil Rights Movement." Congress never acted, and Tatel contends the 2009 compromise cost the liberals: "They sure paid a high price: an unrebutted opinion that criticized the VRA and, worse, endorsed a new 'equal sovereignty' doctrine with potentially profound implications," Tatel wrote of the principle that restricted Congress' ability to single out certain states, in this situation because of past discriminatory practices. "The Court's opinion in Northwest Austin thus planted the seeds for Section 5's destruction."

It is certainly true that the  NAMUDNO decision "planted the seeds" for the  Shelby County  holding, in that it flagged the constitutional concerns that underlay the  Shelby County  decision. But according to this account, there would have been five votes to invalidate Section 5 either way. Thus what  NAMUDNO  actually accomplished (as some of us have pointed out before) was to give Congress the opportunity to revise Section 5 (and, specifically, to update the statute's obsolete coverage formula) so as to preserve its constitutionality. In other words, a majority of the Court was willing to stay its hand, and refrain from invalidating a federal statute, in the interest of deferring to Congress. That Congress did not avail itself of the opportunity, is not the fault of the Court.

The Biskupic story notes other tidbits from the book, such as how Justice Ginsburg resented the pressure to retire under a Democratic president, and suggests that RBG's death during the Trump Administration likely encouraged Judge Tatel to retire soon after Joseph Biden took office. This Adam Liptak interview with Tatel suggests much the same:

Judge Tatel said his retirement was linked to a lesson he drew from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's decision to remain on the bench despite calls for her to step down in time to let President Barack Obama name her successor. "We had dinner here at this table several times," he said. In the book, he described "her annoyance with commentators who were calling for her retirement." Justice Ginsburg's contributions to the law will endure, he said. "But there's no denying," he wrote, "that her death in office ultimately contributed to Roe's downfall," with Justice Amy Coney Barrett — rushed onto the court by President Donald J. Trump and Senate Republicans — casting the decisive vote to eliminate the constitutional right to abortion. Judge Tatel, now 82, wrote that he had stepped down because he "didn't want to take the chance that my seat might be filled by a president who'd campaigned on picking judges who would fulfill his campaign promises." But there was more. "I was also tired," he wrote, "of having my work reviewed by a Supreme Court that seemed to hold in such low regard the principles to which I've dedicated my life."

I look forward to reading the book when it is released.

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Trump jurors can now reveal their identities. It's a risk, but may benefit the public

Kathryn Fink

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Trump jurors can reveal their identities — a risk but it may benefit the public

NPR's Ari Shapiro speaks with jury consultant Julie Blackman about what the future holds for some of the jurors who served in former President Trump's hush money case.

Copyright © 2024 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

College of Law

Iowa Law School announces faculty appointment for Bethany Berger

The Iowa Law School is pleased to welcome Professor Bethany Berger—one of the nation’s foremost experts in federal Indian Law, widely read scholar of Property Law, and legal historian—to its faculty. Berger will begin her appointment as Alan D. Vestal Professor of Law in August 2024.  

Berger’s appointment augments Iowa Law’s burgeoning reputation as a center of Indian Law scholarship and teaching. She is co-author of American Indian Law: Cases and Commentary , the leading casebook in American Indian Law, as well as co-author and Editorial Board member of the foundational treatise in the field, Felix S. Cohen’s Handbook of Federal Indian Law . She has served several appointments at Harvard Law School as the visiting Oneida Indian Nation Professor. From 2005-2011, she served as Judge for the Southwest Inter-Tribal Court of Appeals, which covered several tribes in the southwestern United States.  

Berger, who is presently the Wallace Stevens Professor of Law at the University of Connecticut School of Law, is also co-author of Property Law: Rules, Policies, and Practices , the primary casebook in the field of Property Law.  

Berger’s articles, book chapters, and other writings have appeared in the Michigan Law Review, California Law Review, UCLA Law Review , and the Duke Law Journal, among numerous other publications. Her work has been excerpted and discussed in many casebooks and edited collections, as well as in briefs to the Supreme Court and testimony before Congress. She has given more than 120 invited presentations at law schools, universities, conferences, and symposia nationwide. She was elected to membership of the American Law Institute in 2014.  

Berger earned her law degree from Yale Law School in 1996, having graduated with Phi Beta Kappa honors from Wesleyan University in 1990. She began her professional academic career at the Connecticut School of Law before joining the Wayne State University Law School. In 2006, she returned to the Connecticut School of Law in her current position.   

Berger is not a stranger to Iowa Law, having completed a visiting professorship there in 2005.   

“I am thrilled to join the stellar Iowa faculty,” Berger said. “I’ve admired its collegial and interdisciplinary strengths since I visited the law school all the way back in 2005, and I’m excited to see the ways that new faculty have built on those strengths.”  

Prior to her academic career, Berger served the Navajo and Hopi Nations as Director of the Native American Youth Law Project of DNA-People’s Legal Services, where she conducted litigation challenging discrimination against Indian children, drafted and secured the passage of tribal laws affecting children, and helped to create a Navajo alternative-to-detention program. She was also Managing Attorney of Advocates for Children of New York, where she worked on impact litigation and policy reform concerning the rights of children in public education.