The Juror

Annie Laird is Juror 224. A sculptor with a career going nowhere. A single mother struggling to raise a son. A good citizen who has been summoned to what looks like a rountine tour of civic duty. But the trial she is called to serve on is no ordinary trial. It is a mob trial, whose outcome has been meticulously orchestrated by a man of insidious power and deadly precision. A man who lives by the teachings of Lao Tsu...whose magnetism is irresistible...whose mind is as brilliant as it is twisted. He is know to some as the Teacher, and he's set his sights on Annie Laird. Pulled into the most chilling depths of the criminal underworld, Annie will be seduced by double-edged promises, stalked by the spector of terror, then, finally, driven to a shocking decision by the most basic motivation a woman can know. THE JUROR is a tour de force of crime and obsession, evil and innocence -- a story that taps into fears so primal they linger long after the last page has been read.

Based on author's thesis (doctoral - Princeton University, 2018) issued under title: Making the case for jurors: an ethnographic study of U.S. prosecutors.

He is obsessed with her innocence. He will be destroyed by her guilt. The walls were champagne. The house was immaculate. A prosperous doctor lived there with his son and his beautiful wife. But the elegant walls hid a family's secret, a wife's shame. And one day shots rang out in the doctor's house. Suddenly Jennifer Witt was in jail, facing the death penalty. Jennifer insisted that she had not killed her abusive husband -- and she could never have killed her own son. Dismas Hardy believed her. But Hardy was only part of the defense team, and the only lawyer who continued to believe her...even as her story was torn to pieces, even as her lies came out, even as she was found guilty of murder. Now there's only one thing Jennifer can do to save her life...and she refuses to do it. So Hardy must do it for her. And in a shocking case of violence, betrayal, and lies, his only weapon is the truth... The 13th Juror...When innocence is not enough.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • 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. Don’t miss John Grisham’s new book, THE EXCHANGE: AFTER THE FIRM, coming soon!

Provides a comprehensive and understandable summary of the major theories of juror decision making.

A young attorney is defending her client in a racially charged felony case -- but in a town of old money and hidden secrets, her first trial may be her last in this #1 New York Times bestselling legal thriller. Ruby Bozarth, a newcomer to Rosedale, Mississippi, is also fresh to the State Bar -- and to the docket of Circuit Judge Baylor, who taps Ruby as defense counsel. The murder of a woman from one of the town's oldest families has Rosedale's upper crust howling for blood, and the prosecutor is counting on Ruby's inexperience to help him deliver a swift conviction. Ruby's client is a college football star who has returned home after a career-ending injury, and she is determined to build a defense that will stick. She finds help in unexpected quarters from Suzanne, a hard-charging attorney armed to the teeth, and Shorty, a diner cook who knows more than he lets on. Ruby never belonged to the country club set, but once she nearly married into it. As news breaks of a second murder, Ruby's ex-fiancé shows up on her doorstep -- a Southern gentleman in need of a savior. As lurid, intertwining investigations unfold, no one in Rosedale can be trusted, especially the twelve men and women impaneled on the jury. They may be hiding the most incendiary secret of all.

We, the Jury is the dramatic story of seven jurors, who convicted Scott Peterson of murdering his wife, Laci, and their unborn son, Conner, despite a series of internal battles that brought the first major murder trial of the 21st century to the brink of a mistrial. The Peterson jurors argued and disagreed but eventually bonded to seal the fate of the icy killer who dumped his victims into the bullet-gray waters of San Francisco Bay. The seven jurors of We, the Jury were seven average Americans who never imagined the horrors they would face or the phantoms that would haunt them after they convicted the enigmatic murderer and recommended that he be put to death. This is the story of how the American jury system worked after being battered by critics for the way it functioned in the trials of O.J. Simpson and Michael Jackson. Unlike the jurors in those trials, who second-guessed themselves, the Peterson jurors do not question their decisions. It wasn’t one thing that condemned Scott Peterson, it was everything.